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HLRMIONE 



HERMIONE 

AND 

HER LITTLE GROUP 
OF SERIOUS THINKERS 



BY 



DON MARQUIS 

AUTHOR OF "THE CRUISE OF THE JASPER B.," ETC. 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK LONDON 

1916 












■K 



Copyright, 1916, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



/ 

' -2 1916 



r I 



Printed in the United States of America 



GI.A438659 



*Vw /; 



CONTENTS 



Proem — Introducing Some of Hermione's Friends 

Sincerity in the Home . 

Vibrations . . . * 

Aren't the Russians Wonderful? . 

How Suffering Purifies One! 

Understanding and One's Own Home 

Thoughts of Heredity and Things 

The Swami Brandranath 

Fothergil Finch, the Poet of Revolt 

How the Swami Happened to Have Seven Wives 

The Romantic Old Days . 

Hermione's Boswell Explains 

Symbols and Dew-Hopping 

The Song of the Snore . 

Ballade of Understanding 

Hermione on Fashions and War 

Urges and Dogs .... 

Moods and Poppies . 

Concentration .... 

Soul Mates .... 

Hermione Takes Up Literature 

V 



PAGE 
I 

5 
8 

ii 

13 
16 

19 
22 

24 
29 

32 
34 
36 
39 
45 
47 
50 
53 
57 
59 
62 



vi Contents 

PAGE 

The World Is Getting Better .... 66 

War and Art 68 

A Spiritual Dialogue 71 

Will the Best People Receive the Superman 

Socially? 73 

The Parasite Woman Must Go ! . . . .76 

The House Beautiful 79 

Mamma Is So Mid- Victorian 81 

Voke Easeley and His New Art . . . .84 
Hermione on Superficiality . . . .89 

Isis, the Astrologist 92 

The Simple Home Festivals 96 

Citronella and Stegomyia 100 

Hermione's Salon Opens (Verse) .... 104 
The Perfume Concert . . . . . .109 

On Being Other- Worldly 112 

Parents, and Their Influence . . . .114 
Fothergil Finch Tells of His Revolt Against 

Organized Society 117 

The Exotic and the Unemployed .... 120 

Souls and Toes 123 

Kultur and Things 128 

The Spirit of Christmas 131 

Poor Dear Mamma and Fothergil Finch . .134 



£ 



ontents vn 



PAGE 

Prison Reform and Poise 139 

An Example of Psychic Power .... 141 

Some Beautiful Thoughts 145 

The Bourgeois Element and Background . . 148 
Taking Up the Liquor Problem . . . .150 
The Japanese Are Wonderful, If You Get What 

I Mean 154 

She Refuses to Give Up the Cosmos . . .157 

The Cave Man 159 

The Little Group Gives a Pagan Masque . . 163 

Sympathy 167 

Blouses, Bulgars, and Buttermilk . . .171 

Twilight Sleep 173 

Intuition 175 

Stimulating Influences 178 

Politics 181 

Hermione on Psychical Research . . . .183 
Envoy — Hermione the Deathless . . , .187 



HERMIONE 



HERMIONE 

PROEM 

{Introducing some of Hermione's Friends^) 

I visited one night, of late, 

Thought's Underworld, the Brainstorm Slum, 

The land of Futile Piffledom ; 

A salon weird where congregate 

Freak, Nut and Bug and Psychic Bum. 

There, there, they sit and cerebrate: 
The fervid Pote who never potes, 
Great Artists, Male or She, that Talk 
But scorn the Pigment and the Chalk, 
And Cubist sculptors wild as Goats. 
Theosophists and Swamis, too, 
Musicians mad as Hatters be — 
(E'en puzzled Hatters, two or three!)' 
Tame Anarchists, a dreary crew, 
Squib Socialists too damp to sosh, 
Fake Hobohemians steeped in suds, 
Glib Females in Artistic Duds 
With Captive Husbands cowed and gauche. 

[i] 



Hermione 

I saw some Soul Mates side by side 

Who said their cute young Souls were pink; 

I saw a Genius on the Brink 

(Or so he said) of suicide. 

I saw a Playwright who had tried 

But couldn't make the Public think ; 

I saw a Novelist who cried, 

Reading his own Stuff, in his drink* 

I met a vapid egg-eyed Gink 

Who said eight times: "Art is my Bride !" 

A Queen in sandals slammed the Pans 
And screamed a Chinese chant at us, 
The while a Hippopotamus 
Shook tables, book-shelves and divans 
With vast Terpsichorean fuss . . . 
Some Oriental kind of muss. . . . 

A rat-faced Idiot Boy who slimes 

White paper o'er with metric crimes — * 

He is a kind of Burbling Blear 

Who warbles Sex Slush sad to hear 

And mocks God in his stolen rhymes 

And wears a ruby in one ear — 

Murmured to me : "My Golden Soul 

Drinks Song from out a Crystal Bowl. . .^ . 

Drinks Love and Song . . . my Golden Soul! 

I let him live. There were no bricks, 

[2] 



if 



Proem 



Or even now that Golden Soul 
Were treading water in the Styx. 

A Pallid Skirt — anaemic Wisp, 

As bloodless as a stick of chalk — i 

Got busy with this line of talk : 

"The Sinner is Misunderstood! 

How can the Spirit enter in, 

Be blended with, the Truly Good 

Unless through Sympathy with Sin?" 

"Phryne," I murmured, sad and low, 
"I pass the Buck — I do not know !" 

Upon a mantel sat a Bust. . . . 
Some Hindu god, pug- faced and squat; 
A visage to inspire disgust. . . . 
Lord Bilk, the Deity of Rot. . . . 
Nay, surely, 'twas the great god Bunk, 
For when I wunk at it, it wunk! 

I heard ... I heard it proved that night 
That Fire is Cold, and Black is White, 
That Junk is Art, and Art is Junk, 
That Virtue's wrong, and Vice is right, 
That Death is Life, and Life is Death, 
That Breath is Rocks, and Rocks are Breath 

[3] 



Her mi one 

The Cheap and easy paradox 

The Fool springs, hoping that it shocks. . . 

Brain-sick, I stumbled to the street 

And drooled unto a kindly Cop : 

"Since moons have feathers on their feet, 

Why is your headgear perched on top? 

And if you scorn the Commonplace, 

Why wear a Nose upon your Face? 

And since Pythagoras is mute 

On Sex Hygiene and Cosmic Law, 

Is your Blonde Beast as Bland a Brute, 

As Blind a Brute, as Bernard Shaw? 

No doubt, when drilling through the parks, 

With Ibsen's Ghost and Old Doc Marx, 

You've often seen two Golden Souls 

Drink Suds and Sobs from Crystal Bowls?" 

"I ain't," he says, "I ain't, Old Kid, 
And I would pinch 'em if I did!" 

"Thank God," I said, "for this, at least: 
The world, in spots, is well policed 1" 



SINCERITY IN THE HOME 

SINCERITY should be the keynote of a life, 
don't you think? 

Sincerity — beauty — use — these are my 
watchwords. 

I heard such an interesting talk on sincerity the 
other evening. I belong to a Little Group of Seri- 
ous Thinkers who are taking up sincerity in all its 
phases this week. 

We discussed Sincerity in the Home. 

So many people's homes, you know, do not repre- 
sent anything personal. 

The sincere home should be full of purpose and 
personality — decorations, rugs, ornaments, hangings 
and all, you know. 

The home shows the soul. 

So I'm doing over our house from top to bottom, 
putting personality into it. 

I've a room I call the Ancestors' Room. 

You know, when one has ancestors, one's ances- 
tral traditions keep one up to the mark, somehow. 
You know what I mean — blood will tell, and all that. 
Ancestors help one to be sincere. 

So I've furnished my Ancestors' Room with all 

[5] 



Hermione 

sorts of things to remind me of the dear dead-and- 
gone people I get my traditions from. 

Heirlooms and portraits and things, you know. 

Of course, all our own family heirlooms were 
destroyed in a fire years ago. 

So I had to go to the antique shops for the por- 
traits and furniture and chairs and snuff boxes and 
swords and fire irons and things. 

I bought the loveliest old spinet — truly, a find ! 

I can sit down to it and imagine I am my own 
grandmother's grandmother, you know. 

And it's wonderful to sit among those old heir- 
looms and feel the sense of my ancestors' personali- 
ties throbbing and pulsing all about me ! 

I feel, when I sit at the spinet, that my personality 
is truly represented by my surroundings at last. 

I feel that I have at last achieved sincerity in the 
midst of my traditions. 

And there's a picture of the loveliest old lady . . . 
old-fashioned costume, you know, and all that . . . 
and the hair dressed in a very peculiar way. . . . 

Mamma says it's a made-up picture — not really 
an antique at all — but I can just feel the personality 
vibrating from it. 

I got it at a bargain, too. 

I call her — the picture, you know — after an an- 
cestress of mine who came to this country in the 
old Colonial days. 

[6] 



Sincerity in the Home 



With William the Conqueror, you know — or 
maybe it was William Perm. But it couldn't have 
been William Penn, could it ? For she went to New 
Jersey — Orange, N. J. Was it William of Orange? 
More than likely . . . 

Anyhow, I call the picture after her — Lady Cla- 
rissa, I call it. She married a commoner, as so 
many of the early settlers of this country did. 

When I sit at the spinet and look at Lady Clarissa 
I often wonder what people do without family tra- 
ditions. 

And it's such a comfort to know I'm in a room 
that really represents my personality! 



VIBRATIONS 

HAVE you thought much about Vibrations? 
We're taking them up this week — a Lit- 
tle Group of Advanced Thinkers I belong 
to, you know — and they're wonderfully worth 
while — wonderfully so! 

That's what I always ask myself — is a thing 
worth while ? Or isn't it? 

Vibrations are the key to everything. Atoms 
used to be, but atoms have quite gone out. 

The thing that makes the new dances so wonder- 
fully beneficial, you know, is that they give you 
Vibrations. 

To an untrained mind, of course, Vibrations 
would be dangerous. 

But I always feel that the right sort of mind will 
get good out of anything, and the wrong sort will 
get harm. 

The most interesting woman talked to us the 
other night — to our little group, you know — on one- 
piece bathing suits and the Greek spirit. 

Don't you just dote on the Greeks? 

They had some of the most modern ideas — it 

[8] 



Vibrations 

seems we get a lot of our advanced thought from 
them, if you get what I mean. 

They were so unrestricted, too. One has only 
to look at their friezes and vases and things to 
realize that. 

And the one-piece bathing suit, so the woman 
said, was an unconscious modern effort to get back 
to the Greek spirit. 

She had a husband with her. He doesn't lecture 
or anything, you know. 

But she isn't so very Greek-looking herself, al- 
though her spirit is so Greek, so she has this Greek- 
looking husband to wear the sandals and the tunics 
and the togas and things. 

She calls him Achilles. 

It's quite proper, you know — Achilles stays be- 
hind a screen until she wants him to illustrate a 
point, and then he comes out with a lyre or a lute 
or something, and just stands and looks Greek. And 
then he goes back behind the screen and changes 
into the next garment she needs. 

Of course, there are lots of men couldn't stand 
it as well as Achilles. But when you come to that, 
there are lots of men who don't look so very well 
in bathing suits, either. 

And, of course, our American men don't have 
the temperament to carry off a thing like that. 

Of course, if we all turned Greek it would be 

[9] 



Hermione 

quite a shock right at first to see everybody come 
into a dining-room or a drawing-room looking like 
Achilles does. 

Not that temperament makes so much difference 
as it did a few years ago, you know — temperament 
and personality are going out and individuality is 
coming in. 

Have you thought much about automatic writ- 
ing? 

It's being taken up again, you know. 

Not the vulgar, old-fashioned kind of spiritual- 
ism — that was so ordinary, wasn't it? 

The new ghosts are different. More — more — 
well, more refined, somehow, you know. Like the 
new dances as compared with that horrid turkey- 
trot. 

One should always ask one's self: "Does this 
have a refining influence on me ; and through me on 
the world?" 

For, after all, there is a duty one owes to society 
in general. 

Have you seen the new sunshades? 



AREN'T THE RUSSIANS WONDERFUL? 

AREN'T the Russians marvelous people ! 
We've been taking up DiaghilefT in a se- 
rious way — our little group, you know — and, 
really, he's wonderful! 

Who else but Diaghileff could give those lovely 
Russian things the proper accent? 

And accent — if you know what I mean — accent 
is everything! 

Accent! Accent! What would art be without 
accent ? 

Accent is coming in — if you get what I mean — ■ 
and what they call "punch" is going out. I always 
thought it was a frightfully vulgar sort of thing, 
anyhow — punch ! 

The thing I love about the Russians is their Ori- 
entalism. 

You know, there's an old saying that if you find 
a Russian you catch a Tartar ... or something 
like that. 

I'm sure that is wrong. ... I get so mixed on 
quotations. But I always know where I can find 
them, if you know what I mean. 

En] 



Hermione 

But the Russian verve isn't Oriental, is it? 

Don't you just dote on verve? 

That's what makes Bakst so fascinating, don't 
you think ? — his verve! 

Though they do say that the Russian operas 
don't analyze as well as the German or the Italian 
ones — if you get what I mean. 

Though for that matter, who analyzes them? 

One may not know how to analyze an opera, and 
yet one may know what one likes ! 

I suppose there will be a frightful lot of imita- 
tions of Russian music and ballet now. Don't you 
just hate imitators? 

One finds it everywhere — imitation ! It's the sin- 
cerest flattery, they say. But that doesn't excuse 
it, do you think? 

There's a girl — one of my friends, she says she 
is — who is always trying to imitate me. My ex- 
pressions, you know, and the way I talk and walk, 
and all that sort of thing. 

She gets some of my superficial mannerisms . . . 
but she can't quite do my things as if they were her 
own, you know . . . there is where the accent 
comes in again! 




HOW SUFFERING PURIFIES ONE! 

H, to go through fire and come out purified? 
Suffering is wonderful, isn't it? Simply 
wonderful! 

The loveliest man talked to us the other night — 
to our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know 
— about social ideals and suffering. 

The reason so many attempts to improve things 
fail, you know, is because the people who try them 
out haven't suffered personally. 

He had the loveliest eyes, this man. 

He made me think. I said to myself, "After all, 
have I suffered ? Have I been purified by fire ?" 

And I decided that I had — that is spiritually, 
you know. 

The suffering — the spiritual suffering — that I 
undergo through being misunderstood is something 
frightful! 

Mamma discourages every Cause I take up. So 
does Papa. 

I get no sympathy in my devotion to my ideals. 
Only opposition! 

And from a child I have had such a high-strung, 

[13] 



Her mi one 

sensitive nervous organization that opposition of 
any sort has made me ill. 

There are some temperaments like that. 

Once when I was quite small and Mamma threat- 
ened to spank me, I had convulsions. 

And nothing but opposition, opposition, oppo- 
sition now ! 

Only we advanced thinkers know what it is to 
suffer! To go through fire for our ideals! 

And what is physical suffering by the side of 
spiritual suffering? 

I so often think of that when I am engaged in 
sociological work. Only the other night — it was 
raining and chilly, you know — some of us went 
down in the auto to one of the missions and looked 
at the sufferers who were being cared for. 

And the thought came to me all of a sudden: 
"Yes, physical suffering may be relieved — but what 
is there to relieve spiritual suffering like mine?" 

Though, of course, it improves one. 

I think it is beginning to show in my eyes, 

I looked at them for nearly two hours in the 
mirror last evening, trying to be quite certain. 

And, you know, there's a kind of look in them 
that's never been there until recently. A kind of 
a — a 

Well, it's an intangible look, if you get what I 
mean. 

[14] 



How Suffering Purifies One! 

Not exactly a hungry look, more of a yearning 
look! 

Thank heaven, though, I can control it — one 
should always be the captain of one's soul, shouldn't 
one? 

I hide it at times. Because one must hide one's 
suffering from the world, mustn't one? 

But at other times I let it show. 

And, really, with practice, I think I am going 
to manage it so that I can turn it off and on — if 
you get what I mean — almost at will. 

Because, you know, in certain costumes that look 
would be quite unbecoming. 

Quite out of Harmony. And Inner Beauty only 
comes through Inner Harmony, doesn't it? 

Harmony ! Harmony ! Oh, to be in accord with 
the Infinite! 

Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask my- 
self, "Have I vibrated in tune with the Infinite to- 
day, or have I failed?" 



UNDERSTANDING, AND ONE'S OWN 

HOME 

IT'S terrible when one can't get understanding 
in one's own family! 

Papa has very little real sympathy for ad- 
vanced ideas. And as for Mamma! 

Sometimes I think I shall write! 

Express myself, my real Ego, in Song. 

Not rhymes, of course. If I worked a year I 
couldn't make two lines rhyme. 

But rhyme is going out, anyhow. 

Vers libre is all the rage now. 

We took it up not long ago — our Little Group 
of Serious Thinkers, you know — and I feel con- 
fident it is My Medium of Expression. 

It is so untrammeled, isn't it? 

And one should be untrammeled, both in Art and 
Life, shouldn't one? 

Often I ask myself, at the close of day: "Have I 
been untrammeled today? Or have I failed?" 

If I could put my real Ego — and how wonderful 
the Ego is, isn't it? — into vers libre, even Papa 
might understand me. 



[16] 



Understanding, and Ones Own Home 

I have always yearned to be understood ! 

I have drawn back from matrimony again and 
again because I thought: "Will he understand me? 
Will he see my real Ego? Or will he not?" 

Only the other evening I was talking to the love- 
liest man, who has been misunderstood by his wife. 
It is frightful! 

He is a sculptor. A cubist sculptor. But he 
looks quite respectable — really, some very good 
people receive him. 

And he has the most wonderful eyes — sympa- 
thetic, you know, and psychic — but oh! so pure, 
too! 

He dotes on purity. He told me that. 

His wife does not understand him. She does 
not see his real Ego. 

He said to me: "I can read you like an open 
book. You are yearning. You are yearning for 
real understanding. No one has ever understood 
you. Is that not so? Is that not your secret?" 

Alas! It was. I could not deny it. 

I said to him: "But is real understanding ever 
attainable?" 

He sighed and said : "Alas! The Unattainable!" 

I knew why he sighed — there is so much of it — 
the Unattainable! 

"What one attains," I said, "is often so intangi- 
ble — do you not find it so?" 

[17] 



Hermione 

"Alas!" he said, "the Intangible !" 

And I felt, somehow — in a queer psychic way 
that is elusive, you know — strengthened and sweet- 
ened spiritually by our sad little talk. 

Our real Egos had been in communion. That's 
what he said. 

He has nine very commonplace children, and his 
wife is very difficult socially. 

She insists on filling some sort of a commercial 
position, although he says her place is in the home. 

So they have grown apart. People don't invite 
her places. Only him. 

Oh! to be understood! 



THOUGHTS ON HEREDITY AND THINGS 

ISN'T Heredity wonderful, though! 
We've been going into it rather deeply — 
My Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you 
know. 

And, really, when you get into it, it's quite com- 
plicated. All about Homozygotes and Heterozy- 
gotes, you know. 

The Homozygotes are — well, you might call 
them the aristocrats, you know; thoroughbreds. 

And the Heterozygotes are the hybrids. 

Only, of course, they don't need to be goats at 
all. 

Not but what they could be goats, you know, just 
as easily as horses or cows or human beings. 

But whether goats or humans, don't you think 
the great lesson of Heredity is that Blood will 
Tell? 

Really the farther I go into Philosophy and Sci- 
ence and such things the more clearly I see what a 
fund of truth there is in the old simple proverbs! 

People used to find out great truths by Instinct, 
you know; and now they use Research — vaccinate 
guinea pigs, you know, and all that sort of thing. 

[19] 



Hermione 

Instinct! Isn't Instinct wonderful! 

And Intuition, too! 

You know, I have the most remarkable intuition 
at times! Have I ever told you that I'm fright- 
fully psychic? 

Mr. Finch, the poet — you know Fothergil Finch, 
don't you? — he writes vers libre and poetry both 
— Mr. Finch said to me the other evening, "You 
are extremely psychic!" 

"How did you know it?" I asked him. 

"Ah!" he said, "how does one know these 
things ?" 

And how true that is, when you come to think 
it over! How does one know? 

He has the most magnetic eyes! I could feel 
them drawing my thoughts from me as we talked. 

"You have a Secret," he said. 

"Yes," I said. And to myself I added, "Alas!" 

"Your Secret is," he said, "that there is a dif- 
ference between you and other girls." 

It was positively uncanny! I've felt that for 
years! But no one else had ever suspected it be- 
fore. 

"Mr. Finch," I said, "I must have told you that — 
or else it was just a wild guess. You couldn't have 
gotten it psychically. How did you know it ?" 

"One knows these things," he said — a trifle sad- 
ly, I thought. "They come to one — out of the 

[20] 



Thoughts on Heredity and Things 

Silences; one knows not how. It is better not to 
ask how ! It is better not to question ! It is better 
to accept! Do you not feel it so?" 

Sometimes I think that Fothergil Finch is the 
only man who has ever understood me. 

You see, I am Dual in my personality. 

There is the real Ego, and there is the Alter Ego, 

And, besides these, I have so many moods which 
do not come from either one of my Egos! They 
come from my Subliminal Consciousness! 

Isn't the Subliminal Consciousness wonderful; 
simply wonderful? 

We're going to take it up in a serious way some 
evening next week, and thresh it out thoroughly. 

But I must run along. I have an engagement 
with my dressmaker at two o'clock. You know, 
I've really found one who can make my gowns 
interpret my inner spirit. 



THE SWAMI BRANDRANATH 

I HEARD such a lovely lecture the other night 
on the Cosmos. 

A Little Group of Advanced Women that I 
belong to are specializing this winter on the Cosmos. 

We took it up, you know, because the other top- 
ics we were studying included it so frequently. And 
it's wonderful, really wonderful! 

Of course, an untrained mind will grapple with 
it in vain. One's interest must be serious and sin- 
cere. One must devote time to it. 

Otherwise one will get more harm than good 
out of it, you know. 

It's like the Russian dances that way. 

They are so primal, those dances ! And all those 
primal things are dangerous, don't you think ? Un- 
less one has poise! 

It's odd, too, that some of the most primal peo- 
ple have the most poise, isn't it? 

The Swami Brandranath was like that. I've told 
you about the Swami Brandranath, haven't I? 

He wore such lovely robes! You can't buy silk 
like that in this country. 

[22] 



The Swami Brandranath 



And he had such a pure look in his eyes. So 
many of these magnetic people lack that pure look, 
you know. 

He used to give talks to a Little Group of Serious 
Thinkers I belong to. 

He taught us to go into the Silences — only we 
never quite learned, for some of the girls would 
giggle. There are always people like that. The 
dear Swami! — he was so patient! It was Occi- 
dental levity, he said, and we couldn't help it. 

That is one of the main differences between the 
Orient and the Occident, you know. 

How wonderful they are, the Orientals. And 
just think of India, with all its yogis and bazaars 
and mahatmas and howdahs and rajahs and things ! 

He was a Brahmin, the Swami was. A Brahmin 
and a Burman are the same thing, you know. 

It's a caste, like belonging to one of our best 
families. 

The Swami explained about the marks of caste, 
and so forth, to us. 

And then one of the girls asked him if he was 
tattooed ! 

The idea! 



FOTHERGIL FINCH, THE POET OF 
REVOLT 

ISN'T it odd how some of the most radical and 
advanced and virile of the leaders in the New 
Art and the New Thought don't look it at all? 

There's Fothergil Finch, for instance. Nobody 
could be more virile than Fothy is in his Soul. 
Fothy's Inner Ego, if you get what I mean, is a 
Giant in Revolt all the time. 

And yet to look at Fothy you wouldn't think he 
was a Modern Cave Man. Not that he looks like 
a weakling, you know. But — well, if you get what 
I mean — you'd think Fothy might write about vio- 
lets instead of thunderbolts. 

Dear Papa is entirely mistaken about him. 

Only yesterday dear Papa said to me, "Hermione, 
if you don't keep that damned little vers libre runt 
away from here I'll put him to work, and he'll die 
of it." 

But you couldn't expect Papa to appreciate Fothy. 
Papa is so reactionary and conservative. 

And Fothy's life is one long, grim, desperate 
struggle against Conventionality, and Social Injus- 

[24] 



Fothergil Finch, the Poet of Revolt 

tice, and Smugness, and the Established Order, and 
Complacence. He is forever being a martyr to the 
New and True in Art and Life. 

Last night he read me his latest poem — one of his 
greatest, he says — in which he tries to tell just what 
his Real Self is. It goes : 

Look at Me ! 

Behold, I am founding a New Movement! 

Observe me. ... I am in Revolt! 

I revolt! 

Now persecute me, persecute me, damn you, perse- 
cute me, curse you, persecute me! 

Philistine, 

Bourgeois, 

Slave, 

Serf, 

Capitalist, 

Respectabilities that you are, 

Persecute me! 

Bah! 

You ask me, do you, what I am in revolt against? 

Against you, fool, dolt, idiot, against you, against 
everything ! 

Against Heaven, Hell and punctuation . . . against' 
Life, Death, rhyme and rhythm . . . 

Persecute me, now, persecute me, curse you, perse- 
cute me! 

[25] 



Hermione 

Slave that you are . . . what do Marriage, Tooth- 
brushes, ' Nail-files, the Decalogue, Handker- 
chiefs, Newton's Law of Gravity, Capital, Bar- 
bers, Property, Publishers, Courts, Rhyming 
Dictionaries, Clothes, Dollars, mean to Me? 

I am a Giant, I am a Titan, I am a Hercules of Lib- 
erty, I am Prometheus, I am the Jess Willard 
of the New Cerebral Pugilism, I am the Mod- 
ern Cave Man, I am the Comrade of the Cos- 
mic Urge, I have kicked off the Boots of Super- 
stition, and I run wild along the Milky Way 
without ingrowing toenails, 

I am I! 

Curse you, what are You? 

You are onfy You ! 

Nothing more ! 

Ha! 

Bah! . . . persecute me, now persecute me! 

Fothy always gets excited and trembles and 
chokes when he reads his own poetry, and while 
he was reading it Papa came into the room and 
disgraced himself by asking him if there was 
any Money in that kind of poetry, and Fothy 
was so agitated that he fairly screamed when he 
said: 

"Money . . . money . . . curse money! Money 
is one of the things I am in revolt against. . . . 

[26] 



Fothergil Finch, the Poet of Revolt 

Money is death and damnation to the free spirit!" 

Papa said he was sorry to hear that; he said one 
of his companies needed an ad writer, and he didn't 
have any objection to hiring a free spirit with a 
punch, but he couldn't consider getting anyone to 
write ads that hated money, for there was a salary 
attached to the job. 

And Fothy said: "You are trying to bribe me! 
Capitalism is casting its net over me ! You are try- 
ing to make me a serf : trying to silence a Free 
Voice! But I will resist! I will not be enslaved! 
I will not write ads. I will not have a job!" 

And then Papa said he was glad to hear Fothy' s 
sentiments. He had been afraid, he said, that 
Fothy had matrimonial designs upon me. And the 
man who married his daughter would probably have 
to stand for possessing a good deal of wealth, too, 
for he had always intended doing something very 
handsome for his son-in-law. So if Fothy didn't 
want money, he wouldn't want me, for an enormous 
amount of it would go with me. 

Papa, you know, thinks he can be awfully sar- 
castic. 

So many Earth Persons pride themselves on their 
sarcasm, don't you think? 

And Papa is an Earth Person entirely. I've got 
his horoscope. He isn't at all spiritual. 

But you can imagine that the whole scene was 

[27] 



Hermione 



frightfully embarrassing to me — I will never for- 
give Papa! 

And I haven't made up my mind at all about 
Fothy. But what I do know is this : once I get my 
mind made up, I will not stand for opposition from 
any source. 

One must be an Individualist, or perish! 



HOW THE SWAMI HAPPENED TO HAVE 
SEVEN WIVES 

ISN'T it terrible about that elephant at the Zoo 
— Oh, you know! — it's like Gunga Din, only, 
of course, it isn't Gunga Din at all. 

Anyhow, he's chained for life! I suppose some- 
one gave him tobacco for a joke and it made him 
cross. I've heard of those cases, haven't you? 

An elephant is such a — such a — well, noble beast, 
isn't he? 

It's transmigration of souls makes them that way, 
perhaps. 

Just think — the soul of some Hindu Howdah 
may be in that beast ! 

Or is it a Rajah ? 

Anyhow, it sits on top of an elephant. 

We took up transmigration of souls one time — 
our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know — 
and it's wonderful; simply wonderful! 

That was when the Swami Brandranath used to 
talk to us. The dear Swami ! Such eyes — so pure 
and yet so magnetic ! — I have never seen in a human 
being. 

[29] 



Hermione 

The eye is the window of the soul, you know. 

He's in jail now, the poor, dear Swami. But he 
wasn't really a bigamist at all. You see, he had 
seven spiritual planes. All of us do, only most of 
us don't know it. But he could get from one plane 
to another quite easily. 

Of course, he couldn't remember what he'd done 
on one plane while he was on the next one above 
or below it. And that's the way he happened to 
have seven wives — one for each spiritual plane. 

Only the Court took a sordid view of it. It seems 
there was something about life insurance mixed 
up with it, too. 

The Occidentals are so apt to miss the spiritual 
sweetness of the Oriental, don't you think? 

We are — all but the Leaders of Thought, and a 
little group, here and there — so commonplace. 

Don't you loathe the commonplace? 

Not loathe, really, of course — because the har- 
monious mind does not let itself be disturbed. 

The harmonious mind realizes that dirt is only 
useful matter in the wrong place, as Tennyson sings 
so sweetly somewhere. 

Tennyson has quite gone out, of course. He is 
so — so, well, if you get what I mean — so mid- 
Victorian, somehow. 

It seems he was mid-Victorian all the time, but 
it's only recently that it's been found out on him. 

[30] 



The Swamis Seven Wives 



Though I always will think of "Come Into the 
Garden, Maud/' as one of the world's sweetest lit- 
tle epics. 

I'm very independent that way, in spite of the 
critics. After all, criticism comes down to a ques- 
tion of individual taste, doesn't it? That is, in the 
final analysis. 

Independence! That is what this age needs. 
Nearly every night before I go to bed I say to my- 
self : "Have I been independent today ? Or have I 
failed?" 

I believe in those little spiritual examinations, 
don't you? 

It helps one to keep in tune with the Infinite, you 
know. 

The Infinite! How much is comprises! And 
how little we really understand it ! 

We're going to take it up, the Infinite, in a serious 
way soon — our Little Group of Advanced Think- 
ers, you know. 



THE ROMANTIC OLD DAYS 

IT must have been terribly difficult getting around 
in the days before automobiles were invented, 
or railroads or anything like that. 

Though, of course, it was wonderfully romantic, 
too. 

The old coaching days, particularly, when every- 
body blew on horns as they drove from town to 
town, and there were highwaymen and cavaliers 
with swords and all those people, you know, riding 
by the coaches. 

Don't you just dote on romance? I do! 

But, of course, there's no place for it in our hur- 
ried modern life, and I suppose we shouldn't regret 
it. 

But now and then I sigh over it. Like dropping 
a tear, you know, in a dear old chest perfumed with 
lavender and old roses. 

I always say that one can be advanced and in 
the van of modern progress, and still drop a tear, 
you know. 

Do you think that all this study of sex hygiene 
means the death of romance? 

[32] 



The Romantic Old Days 



It's a serious thought, isn't it? 

But what I always say is: "Which of these 
things will do the most good in the world?" 

Especially good to the poor! 

You know how frightfully interested I am in the 
poor. 

I make that my test. I always say to myself: 
"Which will do the most good to the great masses ?" 

I take such a serious interest in the masses! 

We should think twice before we take romance 
out of their lives and replace it with science of any 
kind. 

For, after all, you know, they represent the 
Future. 

We should all think of the Future! 

That's what makes the Feminist Movement such 
a wonderful thing — it is moving right straight ahead 
toward the Future! 

I'm thinking of being a Suffragist again. I was 
once, you know, but I resigned. 

The sashes and banners are such a frightful shade 
of yellow, you know. So I quit. 

Beauty, after all, is the chief thing. What, after 
all, do all our reforms come to, if the world is not 
to be made more beautiful because of them? 

And I simply cannot wear yellow. 



HERMIONE'S BOSWELL EXPLAINS 

Believe me, 'tis not with elation 
I dwell on Hermione's madness; 

The result of my rapt contemplation 
Is sadness, a terrible sadness! 

I weep when I note how she drivels ; 

I sigh o'er her fake philanthropies; 
I am pained when I see how she frivols, 

Like a kitten, with serious topics. 

It is grief that her mental condition 

Inspires, and not laughter or scorning; 

If she has any use, 'tis her Mission 
To stand as a Horrible Warning. 

I am moral, essentially moral; 

I am grave, and hate everything trashy, 
And that is the reason I quarrel 

With intellects flighty and flashy. 

I yearn for the truth, I am earnest; 
I yearn to face facts without blinking, 

[34] 



Hermiones Bo swell Explains 

Of all of my yearns, quite the yearnest 
Is my yearn to be thorough in thinking. 

That's why I'm severe with this darling, 
Nor pardon nor whitewash nor gloze her, — > 

The linnet — the parrot — the starling ! 
I weep over her and expose her. 



SYMBOLS AND DEW-HOPPING 

LAST week the loveliest man lectured to us — ; 
to our Little Group of Advanced Thinkers, 
you know — on the Ultimate Symbolism. In 
art and life both, you know. 

It was simply wonderful — wonderful! 

Art, you know, used to be full of symbolism. 

But now, it seems, symbolism has dropped out 
of Art, and Nature has taken it up. 

Odd, isn't it? But really not surprising when 
you come to think about it. 

For, you know, Nature is always trying to keep 
up with advanced ideas — evolving and evolving to- 
ward the Superman. 

And the Superwoman, too. 

I think it is the duty of us who are advanced 
thinkers to give Nature a worthy ideal to evolve 
toward, don't you? 

To set Nature a mark to come up to, you know. 

For what is the use of evolution if it doesn't 
evolve forward instead of backward? 

And the Best People, I think, should feel a sense 
of social responsibility and give evolution a model. 

[36] 



Symbols and Dew-Hopping 



Each should be a Symbol — that's what I always 
ask myself each night now : "Have I been a Symbol 
today? Or have I failed to be a Symbol?" 

Down at the beach last week I nearly drowned — 
you don't mean to say you hadn't heard of it? It 
was frightful. 

I'd always heard that, when a person sinks, his 
whole past life passes before him in review. 

But it didn't with me. What I said as I went 
down was : "Have I been a Symbol ? Or have I 
failed?" 

And the life guard who got me out — he was sim- 
ply the most gorgeous man! — Burned bronze, you 
know, and with shoulders like a Greek god! — and 
with the most wonderful eyes and white teeth — he 
asked me, the guard did, "What, marm?" 

It was fearfully disappointing! Sometimes they 
are college men, you know, just life-guarding 
through the summer. But would any college man 
have said, "What, marm?" 

And then he went and saved a blonde creature 
in the most scandalous bathing suit I ever saw. 

He saved one in the most business-like way, too, 
as if he were a waiter, you know, passing from one 
table to another. 

No wonder the social fabric is crumbling when 
quite impossible people like life guards permit them- 
selves to become blase over such matters! 

[37] 



Hermione 

The lower classes are very discouraging anyhow, 
don't you think? — after all we do for them in the 
way of philanthropy and sociology and uplifting 
them generally, you know! 

Of course, I haven't lost my interest in sociology 
— not by any means. I always hold fast the thought 
that all the world are brothers. 

I'm taking up Dew-hopping next week. It's a 
wonderful new nerve cure. Formerly it was quite 
the thing to walk barefoot in the dew at dawn. 

But at this new place I've discovered they don't 
merely walk — that's going out, quite. They hop. 
Like frogs and toads, you know. 

It brings the patients into closer kinship with the 
electric currents of the earth, hopping does, the 
doctor says. It's wonderful! 

He is the loveliest man — with mystic eyes!— the 
doctor is. 



THE SONG OF THE SNORE 

FOTHERGIL FINCH, Hermione's friend, the 
vers libre poet, dodges through life harried 
and hunted by one pursuing Fear. 

"Some day," he said to me — 

(It is Hermione's Boswell who is speaking in this 
sketch, in the first person, and not Hermione, the 
incomparable. ) — • 

"Some day," Fothergil Finch said to me, the 
other night, in a tone of intense, bitter conviction, 
"some day It will get me! Some day It will over- 
take me. The great Beast, Popularity, which pur- 
sues me! Some day It will clutch me and tear me 
and devour my Soul ! Some day I will be a Popu- 
lar Writer!" 

It is my own impression that Fothergil's fears 
are exaggerated ; but they are very real to him. He 
visualizes his own soul as a fugitive climbing higher 
and higher, running faster and faster, to escape 
this Beast. Perhaps Fothergil secretly hopes that 
the speed of his going will induce combustion, and 
he will leap from the topmost hills of Art, flaming, 
directly into the heavens, there to burn and shine 

[39] 



Hermione 

immortally, an authentic star. Well, well, we all 
have our little plans, our little vanities! 

"Fothergil," I said, cheerily, "Popularity has not 
overtaken you yet. Cheer up — perhaps it never 

will:" 

We were in Fothergil's studio in Greenwich Vil- 
lage, where I had gone to see how his poem on 
Moonlight was getting along. He strode to the 
window. Fothergil is not tall, and he is slightly 
pigeon-toed — the fleshly toes of Fothergil symbolize 
the toes of his ever-fleeing soul — but he strides. Fe- 
male poets undulate. Erotic male poets saunter. 
Tramp poets lurch and swagger. Fothergil, being 
a vers libre poet, a Prophet of the Virile, a Little 
Brother of the Cosmic Urge, is compelled by what 
his verse is to stride vigorously across rooms as if 
they were vast desert places, in spite of what 
his toes are. He strode magnificently, tri- 
umphantly, to the window and flung the shade 
up, and looked out at the amorphous mist creep- 
ing in across the roofs. The crawling fog must 
have suggested his great, gray Dread, for presently 
he turned away with a shudder and sank upon a 
couch and moaned. 

'Ah, Heaven ! Popularity ! The disgrace of it — 
the horror of it! Popularity! Ignominy! When It 
catches me — when it happens " 

He plucked from his pocket a small phial and held 

[40] 



The Song of the Snore 



it up toward the light and gazed upon it desperately 
and raptly. 

"I am never without this!" he said. "It is my 
means of escape. I will not be taken unawares! 
I carry it always. At night it is beneath my pillow. 
The day it happens — the moment I feel myself in 
the grip of Popularity " 

I caught his hand ; in his excitement he was rais- 
ing the poison to his lips. 

"What I cannot understand, Fothergil," I said, 
"is why a Poet of the Virile, a Reincarnation of the 
Cave Man — excuse me, but that is what you are 
being this year, is it not ? — should give way to Fear. 
Is it not more in character to meet this Beast and 
slay It ? Is there not a certain contradiction between 
your profession and your practice ?" 

"More than a contradiction," he said eagerly. "It 
is more than contradictory! It is paradoxical!" 

I eliminate much that followed. When Fothergil 
gets started on the paradox, time passes. He is 
never really interested in things until he has dis- 
covered the paradoxical quality in them. Some- 
times I think that his enthusiasm over himself is 
due to the fact that he discovered early in life that 
he himself was a paradox — and sometimes I think 
that discovery is the explanation of his enthusiasm 
for the paradox. 

"What," said Fothergil, "is the most paradoxical 

[41] 



Hermione 

thing in the world ? The Human Snore ! It seems 
Ugly — yet it is Beautiful! It seems a trivial func- 
tion of the body — and yet it is the Key to the 
Soul- " 

"The Key to the Soul?" 

"Man sleeps," he said, "and his Conscious Mind 
is in abeyance. But his Subconscious Mind is still 
awake. It functions. It has its opportunity to utter 
itself. The Snore is the Voice of the Soul! And 
not only the Soul of the individual but of the Soul 
of the race. All the experiences of man, in his 
ascent from the mire to his present altitude, are 
retained in the Subconscious Mind — his fights, his 
struggles, his falls, his recoveries. And his dreams 
and nightmares are racial memories of these things. 
Snores are the language in which he expresses them. 
Interpret the Snore, and you have the psychic his- 
tory of the ascent of man from Caliban to Shake- 
speare ! 

"And I can interpret it! I have listened to a 
million Snores, and learned the language of the 
Soul! Night after night, for years, I harked to 
the Human Snore — in summer, hastening from 
park bench to beach and back again; in winter, 
haunting the missions and lodging houses. Ah, 
Heavens! with what devotion, with what passion 
of the discoverer, have I not pursued the Human 
Snore! I have gone miles to listen to some snore 

[42] 



The Song of the Snore 



that was reported to be peculiar ; I have denied my- 
self luxuries, pleasures, and at times even food, in 
order to hire reluctant persons to Snore for me! 

"And I have written the Epic of the Snore in 
vers libre. You shall hear the prelude !" 

And this is Fothergil's prelude : 

Snore me a song of the soul, 

Oh, sleeper, snore! 

Whistle me, wheeze me, grunkle and grunt, gurgle 

and snort me a Virile stave! 
Snore till the Cosmos shakes ! 
On the wings of a snore I fly backward a billion 

years, and grasp the mastodon and I tear him 

limb from limb, 
And with his thigh bone I beat the dinosaur to 

death, for I am Virile! 
Snore ! Snore ! Snore ! 
Snore, O struggling and troubled and squirming 

and suffering and choking and purple-faced 

sleeper, snore! 
Snore me the sound of the brutal struggle when the 

big bull planets bellowed and fought with one 

another in the bloody dawn of time for the 

love of little yellow-haired moons, 
Snore ! 
Snore till Chaos raps with his boot on the walls of 

Cosmos and kicks to the landlord ! 

[43] 



Hermione 

Turn, choke, twist and struggle, sleeper, and snore 

me the song of life in the making, 
Sneeze me a universe full of star-dust, 
Snore me back to the days when I was a Cave Man, 

and with my bare hands slew the walrus, for 

I am Virile! 
Snore the death-rattle of the walrus, O struggling 

sleeper, snore! 
Snore me 

But I was compelled to leave. There is a great 
deal of it, Fothergil says. If you know Fothergil 
you are aware that when he declaims his Virile 
verses he becomes excited; he swells physically; 
sometimes he looks quite five feet tall in his mo- 
ments of expansion; all this is very bad for him. 
More than once the declamation of his poem, "My- 
self and the Cosmic Urge," has sent him shaking 
to the tea urn. 

Before I left I was able to calm him somewhat. 
But with calm came reflection. And with reflection 
came his great, gray Dread again. 

When I left, Fothergil was looking out of the 
window and shuddering, as if the Monster Popu- 
larity might be hiding behind the neighboring chim- 
neys. One hand clasped the phial caressingly. 

But somehow I doubt that Fothergil will ever be 
compelled to drink the poison. 

[44] 



BALLADE OF UNDERSTANDING 

"Does not the World's stupidity 

At times' make Serious Thinkers fret ?" 

I asked the fair Hermione; 

"Sometimes," she said, "and yet . . . and 
yet . . . 
We feel we owe the World a debt \" 
She waved a slim, bejeweled hand, 
She brooded on some vague regret. . . . 

"I hope," she sighed, "you'll Understand!" 

"Is not your high Philosophy 

Too subtle for the Mob to get?" 

I asked. . . . She pondered seriously; 

"Sometimes," she said, "and yet . . . and 
yet ..." • 
She trifled with an amulet 
Imported from some Orient land. . . . 
"What fish can burst the Cosmic Net? . . . 

I hope" she sighed, "you'll Understand." 

"Art, Science and Psychology, 
Causes that rise and shine and set, 

[45] 



Hermione 

Do all these never weary thee?" — 

"Sometimes," she said, "and yet . . . and 
yet . . . 
Would Thought and Life have ever met 
Unless" . . . She paused. Her lashes fanned 
Her eyes, with tears of ardor wet. . . . 

"I hope," she sighed, "you'll understand 1" 

"Princess, is Bull the One Best Bet?"— 

"Sometimes," she said, "and yet . . . and 
yet . . ." 

She mused, and then; in accents bland, 
"I hope," she said, "you'll Understand!" 



HERMIONE ON FASHIONS AND WAR 

ISN'T war frightful, though; simply frightful! 
What Sherman said it was, you know. 
Though they say there's an economic condi- 
tion back of this war, too. 

We took up economics not long ago — our Little 
Group of Serious Thinkers, you know — and gave 
an entire evening to it. 

It's wonderful; simply wonderful! 

Without economics, you know, there couldn't be 
any Civilization. 

That's a thought that should give one pause, 
isn't it? 

Although, of course, this war may destroy civili- 
zation entirely. 

If I thought it was likely to do that I would join 
in the Peace Demonstration at once — or have they 
had it already? — the march for peace, you know! 
Anyhow, no matter what the personal sacrifice 
might be, I would join in. Not that I care to march 
in the dust. And black never did become me. But 
I suppose there will be some autos. And, well — 
one must sacrifice. 

[47J 



Hermione 

For if Civilization dies out, what will become of 
us then? 

Will we revert to the Primordial? 

Will the Cave Man triumph? 

The very idea gives me the creeps! 

Because, you know, the Cave Man is all right — 
and the Primitive, and all that — as a protest against 
Decadence — and in a literary way — but if all men 
were Cave Men! 

Well, you know, the thought is frightful; simply 
frightful! 

You can have a feeling for just one Cave Man, 
you know, in the midst of Civilization, when a 
million Cave Men would 

But the idea is too terrible for words! 

And in this crisis it is Woman who must save 
the world. 

The loveliest woman — she's quite advanced, 
really, and has the most charming toilettes — told 
our Little Group of Serious Thinkers the other 
night that this is the time when Woman must rule 
the world. 

It is the test of the New Woman. 

If anything is saved from the wreck it will be 
because of Her. 

She can write letters to the papers, you know, 
against war and — and all that sort of thing, you 
know. 

[48]| 



Hermione on Fashions and War 

And, of course, if the Germans and Russians and 
English do all get together and conquer Paris, I 
suppose they won't kill the modistes and designers. 

Civilization, you know, is not so easily killed 
after all. The Romans were conquered, you know, 
but all their styles and philosophies and things were 
taken up by the Medes and Persians who conquered 
them, and have remained unchanged in those coun- 
tries ever since. 

But in a time like this, it's comforting to have 
a Cause to cling to. 

No matter what happens, the advanced thinkers 
must cling together and make their Cause count. 

And if England should conquer France, and put 
a king on the throne there again, no doubt there will 
be a great revival of fashion, as there was in the 
days of Napoleon I. and the Empress Eugenie. 

But if all the advanced thinkers in the world 
could only get together in one place and think Peace 
and Harmony — sit down in circles, you know, and 
send Psychic Vibrations across the ocean — who can 
tell but what the war might not end ? 

The triumph of mind over matter, you know. 

I'm going to propose the idea to our little group 
and pass it on to all the other little groups. 

I'd be willing to give up an entire evening to it 
myself. 



URGES AND DOGS 

WE had quite a discussion the other evening 
— our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, 
you know — as to whether it was Idealism 
or Materialism that had gotten the Germans into 
this dreadful war. 

Isn't Idealism just simply wonderful! 

Fothy Finch said it was neither; he said it was 
the Racial Urge. 

It's like the Cosmic Urge, you know; except it's 
altogether German, Fothy explained. 

Every once in a while you hear of a New Urge. 
That's one of the things that distinguishes Modern 
Thought from the old philosophies, don't you 
think? 

Although, of course, the Cosmic Urge isn't what 
it used to be a year or two ago. 

It's become — er — well, vulgarized, if you know 
what I mean. Everybody is writing and talking 
about it now, don't you know. 

I think, myself, it's going out, soon. And a 
leader — a real pioneer in thought, you know, — 
would scarcely care to talk about it now without a 
smile. 

[50] 



Urges and Dogs 



I've just about dropped it myself. It's the same 
way with everything exclusive. It soon becomes 
common. 

Really, I hadn't worn my white summer furs 
three weeks before I saw so many imitations that 
I just simply had to lay them aside. 

Don't you think that people who take up things 
like that, after the real leaders have dropped them, 
are frightfully lacking in subtlety? 

Oh, Subtlety! Subtlety! What would modern 
thought be without Subtlety? 

Personally, I just simply hate the Obvious. It's 
so — so — well, so easily seen through, if you know 
what I mean. 

Fothy Finch said to me only the other day, "Has 
it ever occurred to you, Hermione, that you are not 
an Obvious sort of person?" 

It is almost uncanny the way Fothergil Finch 
can read my thoughts sometimes. We are both so 
very psychic. 

Mamma said to me last night, "You are seeing a 
great deal of Mr. Finch, Hermione. Do you think 
it is right to encourage him if you don't intend to 
marry him ? What are your intentions with regard 
to Mr. Finch?" 

I didn't answer her at all — poor dear Mamma is 
so old-fashioned! 

But I thought to myself 



[Si] 



Hermione 

Well, would it be so impossible ? 

Of course, marriage is a serious thing. One must 
look at it from all points of view, if one has a 
Social Conscience. 

He has a lovely way with dogs, Fothy has. They 
trust him instinctively — he is just dear with them. 
I have some beauties now, you know. They are 
getting so they won't let anyone but Fothy bathe 
them. 



MOODS AND POPPIES 

WE took up the Bhagavad Gita — our Little 
Group of Advanced Thinkers, you know 
— in quite a thorough way the other 
evening. 

Isn't the Bhagavad Gita just simply wonderful! 

It has nothing at all to do with Bagdad, you 
know — though at first glance it seems quite like it 
might, doesn't it? 

Of course, they're both Oriental — aren't you just 
simply wild about Oriental things? — but really, 
they're quite different. 

The Bhagavad Gita, you know, is all about Rein- 
carnation and Karma, and all those lovely old 
things. 

When I start my Salon I'm going to have a 
Bhagavad Gita Evening — all in costume, you know. 

I find that when I dress in harmony with the 
Idea I radiate it so much more effectively, if you 
get what I mean. 

Fothergil Finch is the same way. 

He writes his best vers libre things in a purple 
dressing-gown. 

[53] 



Hermione 

There's an amber-colored pane of glass in his 
studio skylight, and he has to sit and wait and wait 
and wait until the moonlight falls through that pane 
onto his paper, and then it only stays long enough 
so he can write a few lines, and he can't go on with 
the poem until it comes again. 

He brought me one last night — he wrote it to me 
— yes, really! — and he waited and waited for 
enough moonlight to do it, and caught a terrible 
cold in his head, poor dear Fothy. 

It goes like this: 

Poppies, poppies, silver poppies in the moonlight, 

poppies ! 
Silver poppies, 

Silver poppies in the moonlight, 
Youth! 
Poppies, poppies, crimson poppies in the sunset, 

love! 
Poppies, poppies, poppies! 
Black poppies in the midnight, 
Death ! 

Three colors of poppies! 
One color is silver, 
The second color is crimson, 
The third color is black, 

And if there were a fourth color it would be 
green ! 

[54] 



Moods and Poppies 



Alas! Why is there never a fourth color? 

Poppies, poppies, poppies, but no Green Poppy! 

I asked the little crippled girl who sells poppies to 
buy bread for the drunken father who beats 
her, 

And she said, "I, too, seek the fourth color!" 

I asked the boy who drives the grocer's delivery 
wagon, the old apple woman without teeth, the 
morgue keeper, the plumber, the janitor, the 
red-armed waffle baker in the window of a 
restaurant full of marble-topped tables and 
pallid-looking girls, the subway guard and the 
millionaire, 

And they all said, 

"Poppies, poppies, poppies, 

We have never known but three colors !" 

I am a Great Virile Spirit; 

I, with my Ego, 

I will give the world its Desire ! 

I, the strong! 

I, the daring! 

I will create a Green Poppy! 

That about being Virile is just like Pothy! He 
prides himself on being Virile, you know — poor, 
dear Fothy! 

He said until he saw me he had always been sat- 
isfied with silver and red and black poppies, but 

[553 



Hermione ' 

as . soon as he knew me he felt there must be a 
Green Poppy somewhere. 

It is likely a mood of my soul, you know — the 
Green Poppy is ! 

Isn't it simply wonderful! 



CONCENTRATION 

ISN'T it just simply terrible the way the Balkans 
are bombarding Venice ... all those beauti- 
ful Doges and things, you know. 

I suppose there will be nothing left, just simply 
nothing, of the city that Byron wrote about in — ■ 
in — what was it? Oh, yes, in "Childe Harold to 
the Dark Tower Came." 

That's one comforting thing to think of if this 
country ever gets into war, isn't it? — I mean that 
we haven't any of those lovely old things that can 
be bombarded, you know. 

I suppose if we ever did get into war someone 
like Edison would invent something quick, you 
know, and it would be all over in a few hours. 

Isn't inventive science wonderful! Just simply 
wonderful ! 

It's so — so — well, so dynamic, if you get what I 
mean. Isn't it? 

Don't you just dote on dynamic things ? 

Dynamic personalities, especially. 

I've often thought if I had it to do over again 
I'd go in less for psychics and more for dynamics. 

[571 



Her mi one 

But then there are so many things that a modern 
thinker must keep up with, aren't there? 

And it's easy enough to concentrate one's mind on 
one or two things, but I often find it terribly diffi- 
cult to concentrate on ten or twelve different things 
all at the same time. 

And one must if one is to keep up with the very 
latest in Thought and Life. 

Concentration! Concentration! That is the key 
to it all ! Nearly every night when I am alone with 
my own Ego I go into the Silences for a little period 
of Spiritual Self-Examination and I always ask my- 
self : "Have I Concentrated today? Really Con- 
centrated? Or have I failed?" 

I call these little times my Psychic Inquisitions. 

In the hurry of this crowded age one must find 
time to get alone with one's self, must one not? 
Fothy Finch has written a beautiful thing about the 
hurry of this crowded age which I wish everyone 
could hang over his desk. 

Well, I must be going on now. I have a com- 
mittee meeting for this afternoon. I can't for the 
life of me remember whether it's about suffrage — 
Oh, yes, I marched ! — or about some relief fund. 



SOUL MATES 

I'M taking up Bergson this week. 
Next week I'm going to take up Etruscan 
vases and the Montessori system. 

Oh, no, I haven't lost my interest in sociology. 

Only the other night we went down in the auto 
and watched the bread line. 

Of course, one can take up too many things. 

It's the spirit in which you take a thing up that 
counts. 

Sometimes I think the spirit in which you take 
a thing up counts more than the thing itself — counts 
in its effect on you, you know. 

Of course, the way to get the real meaning out 
of any thing is to put yourself in a receptive atti- 
tude, r 

In serious things the attitude counts for every- 
thing. One mustn't scoff. 

If you look at it seriously and scientifically you'll 
see there's a great deal more than you suspected 
in all this affinity and soul mate craze, for in- 
stance. 

Not that I care much for the words "soul mate" 

[59] 



Hermione 



and "affinity" particularly; they have boon so ■rul- 
gariccd. somehow. 

The Best People don't use thoce terms any more. 

Psychic harmony is the new term. 

The. loveliest man explained all about it to us the 
other day. I belong to a Little Group of Thinkers, 
who take a serious interest in these things, you 
know. 

We are trying to find out how to make our 
psychic powers count for the betterment of the 
world. I am very psychic. Some are not. 

This man had the most interesting eyes and the 
silkiest beard, and he said his aura was pink. 

If he should meet a girl, you know, with an aura 
just the shade of pink that his aura is, why then 
they would know they were in psychic harmony. 

Simple, isn't it? But then all truly great ideas 
are simple, aren't they? 

But if his aura was blue, and her aura was yel- 
low, then, of course, they would quarrel. That's 
what makes so much domestic unhappiness. 

But he said something that gave me the most 
frightfully insecure feeling. 

He said the aura changes its color as the soul 
progresses. 

Two people may be in harmony today, and both 
have pink auras, and in a year hers may be green 
and his golden. 

[60] 



Soul Mates 



What desperate chances a woman takes when 
she marries, doesn't she? 

I sometimes think life must have been a much 
more comfortable thing before the world got to 
be so terribly advanced. 

But, of course, it is our duty to sacrifice personal 
comfort for the future of the race and the better- 
ment of the world. 

As I was looking at the bread line the thought 
came to me that the chief difference between this 
advanced age and other ages was in the fact that 
people today are willing to take a serious interest 
in such things. 

People are willing to sacrifice themselves today, 
you know. 

It is food for optimism, don't you think ? 

Not that I was really so uncomfortable in the 
auto, you know. I had on my new mink coat. 



HERMIONE TAKES UP LITERATURE 

WE'VE been going in for Astrological Re- 
search lately — our Little Group of Mod- 
ern Thinkers, you know — and we've 
picked our own personal stars. 

Only it seems such a shame, doesn't it, that one 
isn't allowed to change stars? Keeping the same 
star all your life is rather monotonous, don't you 
think? 

Though, of course, if one changed and got some- 
one else's star things might be frightfully com- 
plicated, mightn't they? 

But it would make a charming little story, 
wouldn't it, for a girl to change stars, you know, 
and find that her new star belonged to some quite 
nice young man, and, of course, after that, their des- 
tinies would be one. 

I get some of the most original plots for stories f 

Fothergil Finch has often said to me that that 
is one difference between genius and talent. When 
you have genius, you know, things like that just 
come to you ; but if you only have talent you must 
work and work for them. 

[62] 



Hermione Takes Up Literature 

"If I only had your spontaneity, Hermione!" 
Fothergil often says. 

And really, it's never been any trouble for me at 
all to dash off an idea, though of course they 
would have to be touched up by the editors a little 
before they could be printed. 

Fothergil said the other night I should try po- 
etry. 

"Why, Fothy," I said, "if I lived a hundred years 
I never could make two lines rhyme with each 
other !" 

But he said rhyme was out of fashion anyhow, 
and — would you believe it ? — while we were talking 
I got an idea for a poem and just dashed it off 
then and there — a vers libre poem you know, and it 
goes: 

What becomes of 

People when they die? 

I used to ask when I was a little child, 

And now even since 

I am grown up I am not sure that I know! 

"Fothy," I said, "it was so easy — that makes me 
afraid it isn't really good!" 

"Ah," he said, "that modesty proves you are a 
genius! Heavens, what would I not give to 
have your spontaneity, your modesty, your spon- 
taneity " 

[63] 



Hermione 



But I interrupted him. Another idea had come 
to me — just like that, and — would you believe it? — 
I dashed off another one, right then and there ! It 
went : 

/ see the rain fall. 

It is no effort for the rain to fall. 

Why is it no effort? 

Because it falls spontaneously! 

O Spontaneity! Spontaneity! 

Rain is genius, 

Genius is rain ! 

Fall, fall, rain! 

Fothy is going to get them printed — he knows a 
lot of vers litre publishers — if Papa will only put 
up the money. And one nice thing about poor dear 
Papa is that he always will put it up. 

So that night I wrote twenty or thirty more 
of them, and they were all good — all works of 
genius — they all came to me just like the first ones ! 

The last one came to me just as I was going to 
bed. I looked out of the window and saw the moon 
and ran and got a pencil and wrote : 

/ see the moon out of the window, 

I wonder what it thinks of me? 

Wouldn't the moon and I both be surprised 

[64] 



Hermione Takes Up Literature 

If we found that neither one of us 
Thought anything at all about the other? 

The book's going to be vellum, you know, and 
that sort of thing. I'm going to have a gown just 
like the cover and give a fete when it comes out. 

The worst thing about being literary, though, is 
that it makes one feel so responsible for the gift, 
if you know what I mean, doesn't it ? 



THE WORLD IS GETTING BETTER 

DR. JAGADES CHUNDER BOSE says that 
plants are almost as sensitive as human be- 
ings — they have feelings and susceptibili- 
ties, you know, and all that sort of thing. 

Isn't it wonderful how the Hindus find these 
things out? 

Soul speaking to soul, I suppose. 

But I have scarcely been able to eat comfortably 
since I read it. 

Every time I sit down to a salad it makes me 
feel quite like a cannibal ! 

And to think, I was just on the point of becoming 
a vegetarian, too! 

I suppose to be on the safe side one should eat 
nothing but minerals. 

But, of course, advanced thinkers will have to 
take the matter up seriously and discover a way 
out — some day we will live on aromas and elec- 
tricity, no doubt. 

Don't you think the world is growing kinder? 
A hundred years ago, for instance, no one would 

[66] 



The World Is Getting Better 

have cared whether plants suffer pain or not — people 
wouldn't have given it a second thought, you know. 

And now, though they will have to keep on 
eating them until something else is invented, they 
will do it with a shudder and won't enjoy them near 
so much. The world is losing much of its cruelty 
and thoughtlessness. Upward! Onward! is the 
slogan. 

Do you like my new coat? Unborn lamb skin, 
you know. Isn't it lovely ! 



WAR AND ART 

THIS war is going to have a tremendous in- 
fluence on Art — vitalize it, you know, and 
make it real, and all that sort of thing. 
In fact, it's doing it already. We took up the war 
last night — our Little Group of Advanced Think- 
ers, you know — in quite a serious way and consid- 
ered it thoroughly in all its aspects and we decided 
that it would put more soul into Art. 

And into life, too, you know. 

Already you can see on every hand how much 
serious purpose it is putting into lives that were 
merely trivial before. Even poor, dear Mamma — 
and really, it would be hard to imagine a more triv- 
ial person than Mamma ! — is knitting socks. 

She is going to send them to the Poles. She 
wanted to send them to the Belgians. 

But I said to her, "Positively, Mamma, you are 
always behind the times ! Don't you know the Bel- 
gians are going out and the Poles are coming in?" 

And, you know, it's been months since really 
Smart People have knit for the Belgians. The Poles 
are quite the thing now. 

[68] 



War and Art 



It's strange how great movements keep going on 
and on from mountain peak to mountain peak of 
usefulness like that, isn't it? — changing their direc- 
tion now and then as evolution itself does, but 
always progressing, progressing ! 

That is one wonderful thing about evolution — it 
always progresses. 

When one thinks it over, one grows more and 
more conscious that the human race owes a great 
deal to Evolution, doesn't one ? 

What could we have done without it? 

It's as somebody said about something else one 
time — if we hadn't had it, you know, it would have 
been necessary to invent it, though for the life of 
me, I can't remember who it was or what he said 
about it. Although likely it was Madame de Stael. 
We took her up once and it developed that she had 
said a most surprising number of things like that — > 
things, you know, that would be quite quotable if 
you could only remember them. 

Isn't memory a wonderful faculty, though! 

I've always intended to go in for developing mine 
systematically and scientifically. 

But I've never done it because I always forget 
whether I should order the book-shop people to 
send home a work on numismatics or a work on 
mnemonics. One of them is about money, you 
know, and the other is about memory. And once 

[69] 



Hermione 



when I was shopping and thought I had it right it 
turned out — the book did, when I got it home — to 
be all about air and things. Pneumatics, you know ! 
Wasn't it perfectly ridiculous? 

But, of course, one learns by one's mistakes. 

Have you seen dear Nijinsky? 

We were discussing him last evening — our little 
group, you know — and decided that while he has 
more Personality than Mordkin he has less Tem- 
perament, if you get what I mean. 

One of the girls said last evening, "Mordkin is 
more exotic, but Nijinsky is more esoteric. " 

And another said, "One of them shows intellect 
obviously mingled with spirit, but the other shows 
spirit occultly mingled with intellect." 

Fothergil Finch said, "They are alike in their 
differences, but subtly differentiated in their like- 
nesses, n'est-ce pas?" 

Fothy has a simply delightful faculty of summing 
a thing up in a sentence like that, but it makes him 
very vain if you show you think so; so I put him 
in his place and closed the discussion with one re- 
mark: 

"It is all," I said, "it is all a question of Inter- 
pretation." 

And, quite seriously, when you come to think 
about it, it usually is, isn't it ? 



A SPIRITUAL DIALOGUE 

Last night I met Hermione, 
And eagerly she said to me: 
"Thoughts from the ambient everywhere 
Electrify our worldly air." 

"My soul," I said, "grabs off such hints 
As butter, whether pats or prints, 
Receives and holds all unaware 
Small strands of drifting, golden hair. 
But have you thought, O maiden fair, 
O, have you thought profoundly of 
The psychic consciousness in crows? 
Or why the Malay when in love 
Wears rubber earrings on his toes?" 

The lady shook her lovely head — 

'Twas coiffed divinely — and she said: 

"Have you reflected on the part 

Primeval instinct plays in Art? 

It's simply wonderful the way 

Old things grow new from day to day!" 

[71] 



H 



ermione 



"That's true," I said, "I often ape 
The Ape to get my Art in shape — 
And with the Simian going strong, 
Behold, another Rennysawng!" 

"Perhaps," she said, "across the verge 
Of darkness, from the Cosmic Urge, 
The Light is speeding in bright waves, 
E'en now to show the way to slaves!" 

"The thought," I said, "is cheerful — but 
These Swamis will chew betel-nut!" 

"Alas!" she said, "alas! too true! 
But oh! it's wonderful of you 
To sympathize and understand- 



(She gestured with a jeweled hand) — > 
"The joy of being understood!" 

"Our talk," I said, "has done me good." 



WILL THE BEST PEOPLE RECEIVE THE 
SUPERMAN SOCIALLY? 

WE'VE been taking* up Metabolism lately — 
our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you 
know — and it's wonderful; just simply 
wonderful! 

I really don't know how I got along for so many 
years without it — it opens up such new vistas, 
doesn't it ? 

I can never think in the same way again about 
even the most trivial things since I have learned 
all about Protoplasm and — and — well, all these 
marvelous scientific things, you know. 

Isn't Science delightful! 

There's the Cosmos, for instance. It had always 
been there, you know. But nobody knew much 
about it until Scientists took it up in a serious way. 

And now I, for one, feel that I couldn't do with- 
out it! 

Although, of course, one feels one's responsibili- 
ties toward it, too, and that is apt to be rather 
trying at times unless one has a truly earnest nature 
and is prepared to make sacrifices. 

T73] 



Hermione 

If the Cosmos is to be improved, what is there 
that can improve it except Evolution? 

And unless we who are serious thinkers give Evo- 
lution a mark to reach, how can we be sure that 
Evolution will Evolve in the right direction? 

I have worried myself half to death at times 
over the Superman! 

You know I feel personally responsible, to a 
certain extent, about what he will be like when he 
gets here. If he isn't what he should be, you know, 
it will be the fault of those of us who are the 
leaders in thought today — it will be because we 
haven't started him right, you know. 

Mamma — poor dear Mamma is so unadvanced, 
you know! — has an idea that when the Superman 
does get here he won't be at all the sort of person 
that one would care to receive socially. 

"Hermione," she said to me only the other day, 
"no Superman shall ever come into my house !" 

She heard some of my friends, you know, talk- 
ing about the Superman and Eugenics, and she has 
an idea that he will be horribly improper. 

"I consider that the Superman would be a dan- 
gerous influence in the life of a young woman," 
said Mamma. 

"Mamma," I told her, "you are frightfully behind 
the times! There isn't a doubt in the world that 
when the Superman does come he will be taken 

[74] 



The Superman 



up by the Best People. Anarchists and Socialists 
go everywhere now, and dress just like other peo- 
ple, and you can hardly tell them, and it will be 
the same way with the Superman.' ' 

What Mamma lacks is contact. Contact with — 
with — well, she lacks Contact, if you get what I 
mean. 

So many of the elder generation do lack Contact, 
don't you think? 

Although, of course, it would be very hard to 
have Contact and Background at the same time. 

And if one must choose between Contact and 
Background, the choice is apt to be puzzling at 
times. 

Although, of course, it is useless to reason too 
much on things like that. Intuition often succeeds 
where reason fails, especially if one is at all Psychic. 

Well, I must go. I must hurry to my costumer's. 

I'm having a special costume made, you know. 
We've been taking up Spiritualism again — our little 
group, you know. And I'm going to give a Spirit 
Fete, and of course it will take a great deal of 
dressing and arranging and decoration. 

Papa says it will be a Ghost Dance, but he is so 
terribly frivolous and irreverent at times. 

Don't you just simply loathe frivolity? 



THE PARASITE WOMAN MUST GO! 

THE Parasite Woman must go! 
Our Little Group of Serious Thinkers 
took up the Parasite Woman last night in 
quite a thorough way. One of the most interesting 
women you ever listened to gave us a little talk 
about the Parasite Woman, you know. 

And we decided that the Parasite Woman has 
nothing to Contribute to the Next Generation. 

Oh, these Parasite Women ! It just simply makes 
my blood boil to hear about them! I don't know 
when I have been so indignant! 

With the world so full of work to be done for 
the Cause — for all the Causes, you know— they 
just sit around selfishly at home all wrapped up 
in their own families, or children, if they're mar- 
ried, and do nothing at all for the Evolution of 
the Ego and the Development of the Race, and the 
Conscious Guidance of the Next Generation, or any- 
thing at all like that. 

Thank goodness I could never be a Parasite 
Woman ! 

And, yet, I pity them, too. 

176] 



The Parasite Woman Must Go! 

I'm thinking quite seriously of starting a little 
Mission of my own for the purpose of appealing 
to and reforming the Parasite Women among my 
acquaintances. 

Of course it will take organization, and that 
means I will have to have money to start it and 
keep it going. 

But Papa will give me the money all right. That 
is one thing about poor, dear Papa — he doesn't 
understand the new movements at all, but he will 
give me money. And he never asks what I do 
with it. 

Now and then, of course, he scolds a little — he 
told me the other day I cost him nearly as much 
as a war. But I can always jolly him, you know, 
when he gets that way. Men are so easily managed 
and flattered. 

I suppose my Mission will take quite a lot of 
money, too. But it is my duty, and I am willing to 
make any sacrifice — we modern thinkers are used 
to making sacrifices for our Cause! 

And it is worth a lot of sacrifice to make the 
Parasite Woman over into an Awakened and En- 
lightened Member of Society, independent of the 
Man-Made System that has shackled her for so 
long. 

What is nobler than Emancipation? 

Of course, I'll have to have a Secretary. And 

L77l 



Hermione 

to get one especially trained in organizing the Mis- 
sion will cost quite a bit, probably. 

But Papa will never miss it. 

And I think I'll have to have a man for a Secre- 
tary. One that is quite presentable socially, you 
know. For the Secretary will have to attend to a 
lot of the details. I will give some teas and enter- 
tainments and things, just to get the Parasite 
Women I know interested. 

And there's nothing like the right sort of a man 
to get women to cooperate in some Cause that aims 
for Woman's Liberty. 

And I suppose, really, two Secretaries would be 
better. And they will have to be men who can 
dance the new dances well, too. That counts a 
lot nowadays in getting girls to come to places. 

I feel that I have Found my Work ! One's work 
lies at one's hand, if one could but see it, always. 
And mine is to Save the Parasite Women I know 
from Themselves and their Frivolity. 

I will coax the first cheque out of Papa this very 
evening! It may take some management and jolly- 
ing, but — well, Papa is easy! 



THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL 

WE'RE taking up the House Beautiful — our 
Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you 
know — for we've decided that Environ- 
ment has more effect on personality than Heredity. 

Interior decoration is the greatest of the arts — 
don't you think? — because it furnishes the proper 
setting for the spirit. 

The loveliest woman gave us a talk on interior 
decoration the other night — she wears these slinky, 
Greek things, you know, with straw sandals, when 
the weather permits — and I engaged her to do the 
house over. 

But right away a problem presented itself — 
whether to have the house done to fit my personality 
or whether to have the house done to fit the thing 
I want my personality to evolve into, and trust the 
environment to help in the evolution. 

Modern thought complicates life immensely, 
doesn't it? 

But I always feel that it is my duty to give the 
best in myself to these problems. 

Someone must help Evolution evolve. Someone 

[79] 



Hermione 

must be unselfish enough to give the cosmos new 
marks to come up to. 

And who but the serious thinkers are willing to 
sacrifice themselves? 

Well, we finally decided ' to do every room in 
the house differently — each one to fit a mood, you 
know. 

There's one room now I call "Aspiration," where 
I go for my little spiritual examinations. 

And the next room beyond that is "Resolve." 

And then there's a room I call "Brotherly Love," 
where I go to think out how to help the masses. 

For of course I haven't lost my interest in so- 
ciological problems. 

In fact I'm having some new dresses made — ■ 
simple, quiet looking things, you know — for the 
express purpose of visiting the very poor in and 
asking them questions about themselves. 

Though I must admit that since helping the war 
sufferers came into fashion friendly visiting has 
rather gone out. 



MAMMA IS SO MID-VICTORIAN 

WE'VE been taking up Hedonism lately — 
our Little Group of Modern Thinkers, 
you know — and it's wonderful, just sim- 
ply wonderful! 

Though Mamma — poor dear Mamma is so hope- 
lessly old-fashioned; — has entirely the wrong idea 
about it. 

"Hermione," she said to me the other evening, 
after the little talk, "what did the lecturer call 
himself?" 

"He's a Hedonist," I said. 

"Indeed!" she said, "and what sort of modern 
impropriety is Hedonism? Is it something about 
Sex, or is it something about Psychics?" 

I simply couldn't speak. 

I just gave her a look and walked out of the 
room. It is absolutely useless to attempt to explain 
anything to Mamma. 

She is so Mid-Victorian! 

And Mid-Victorianism has quite gone out, you 
know. Really. The loveliest man gave us a talk 
on the Mid-Victorian recently, and when he was 

[81] 



Hermione 



done there wasn't a one of us that didn't go and 
hide our Tennysons and Ruskins. 

Although I always will like "Come into the Gar- 
den, Maud." 

But he did it with such humor, you know. Isn't 
a sense of humor a perfectly wonderful thing? 

A sense of humor is a sense of proportion, you 
know — he brought that out so cleverly, the anti- 
Mid-Victorian man did. 

Though so many people who have a sense of 
humor are so — so, well, so qu-eer about it, if you 
get what I mean. That is, if you know they have 
one, of course you're naturally watching for them 
to say humorous things ; and they're forever saying 
the sort of things that puzzle you, because you have 
never heard those things before in just that way, 
and if you do laugh they're so apt to act as if you 
were laughing in the wrong place ! 

And one doesn't dare not to laugh, does one? 
It's really quite unfair and unkind sometimes! 
Don't you think so? 

We took up a volume on The Analysis of Humor 
one winter — our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, 
you know — and read it completely through, and 
before the winter was over it got so there wasn't 
a one of us that dared not to laugh at anything 
any other one said and — well, it got rather ghastly 
before spring. Because even if someone wanted to 

[82] 



Mamma Is So Mid-Victorian 

know if a person needed an umbrella someone else 
would laugh. 

Well, I must be going now. I have a committee 
meeting at three this afternoon. We're going in 
for this one-day Women's Strike, you know — our 
little group is. 



VOKE EASELEY AND HIS NEW ART 

FOR my acquaintance with Voke Ease- 
ley 

(Hermione's reporter, and not Hermione 
herself, is speaking now.) 

For my acquaintance with Voke Easeley and his 
new art, I am indebted to Fothergil Finch. 

Fothergil is a kind of genius hound. He scurries 
sleuthing around the town ever on the scent of 
something queer and caviar. He is well trained and 
never kills what he catches himself; he takes it to 
Hermione; and after Hermione has tired of it I 
am at liberty to do what I please with it. 

The most remarkable thing about Voke Easeley 
at a casual glance is his Adam's apple. It is not 
only the largest Adam's apple I have ever seen, and 
the hardest looking one, and the most active one, 
but it is also the most intelligent looking one. Voke 
Easeley's face expresses very little. His eyes are 
small and dull and green. His mouth, while large, 
misses significance. His nose, indeed, is big; but 
it is mild; it is a tame nose; one feels no more 
character in it than in a false nose. His chin 

[84] 



Voke Easeley and His New Art 

and forehead retreat ingloriously from the battle 
of life. 

But all the personality which his eyes should 
show, all the force which should dwell in his 
nose, all the temperamental qualities that should 
reveal themselves in his mouth and chin, all the 
genius which should illumine his brow — these dwell 
with his Adam's apple. The man has run entirely 
to that feature; his moods, his emotions, his 
thoughts, his passions, his appetites, his beliefs, his 
doubts, his hopes, his fears, his resolves, his de- 
spairs, his defeats, his exaltations — all, all make 
themselves known subtly in the eccentric motions 
of that unusual Adam's apple. 

When I saw him first in action I did not at once 
get it. He stood stiffly erect in the center of Her- 
mione's drawing-room, surrounded by the serious 
thinkers, with his head thrown back and his Adam's 
apple thrust forward, and gave vent to a series of 
strange noises. Beside him stood a very slender 
lady, all dressed in apple green, with a long green 
wand in her hand, and on the end of the wand 
was an artificial apple blossom. This she waved 
jerkily in front of Voke Easeley's eyes, and his 
Adam's apple moved as the wand moved, and from 
his mouth came the wild sounds in response to it. 

Soon I realized that she was conducting him as 
if he were an orchestra. 

[85] 



Hermione 

But still I did not get it. For it was not words, 
it was nothing so articulate as speech, that Voke 
Easeley uttered. Nor was it, to my ear, song. And 
yet, as I listened, I began to see that a wild rhythm 
pervaded the utterance; the Adam's apple leapt, 
danced, swung round, twinkled, bounded, slid and 
leapt again in time with a certain rough barbaric 
measure; the sounds themselves were all discords, 
but discords with a purpose ; discords that took each 
other by the hand and kicked and stamped their 
brutal way together toward some objective point. 

I led Fothergil into a corner. 

"What is it?" I whispered. It is always well, at 
one of Hermione's soul fights, to get your cue be- 
fore the conversation officially starts. If you don't 
know what is going to be talked about before the 
talk starts the chances are that you never will know 
from the talk itself. 

"A New Art!" said Fothergil. And then he led 
me into the hall and explained. 

What Gertrude Stein has done for prose, what 
the wilder vers libre bards are doing for poetry, 
what the cubists and futurists are doing for paint- 
ing and sculpture, that Voke Easeley is doing for 
vocal music. 

"He is painting sound portraits with his larynx 
now," said Fothergil. "And the beautiful part of 
it is that he is absolutely tone deaf! He doesn't 

[86] 



Voke Easeley and His New Art 

know a thing about music. He tried for years to 
learn and couldn't. The only way he knows when 
you strike a chord on the piano is because he doesn't 
like chords near as well as he does discords. He 
has gone right back to the dog, the wolf, the cave 
man, the tiger, the bear, the wind, the rock slide, 
the thunder and the earthquake for his language. 
He interprets life in the terms of natural sounds, 
which are discords nearly always ; but he has added 
brains to them and made them tell all the moods of 
the human soul!" 

"And the lady in green?" 

"That is his wife — he can do nothing without 
her. There is the most complete psychic accord be- 
tween them. It is beautiful! Beautiful !" 

When we returned the lady in green was an- 
nouncing : 

"The next selection is a Voke Easeley impression 
of the Soul of Wagner gazing at the sunrise from 
the peak of the Jungfrau." 

The wand waved; the Adam's Apple leapt, and 
they were off. What followed cannot be indicated 
typographically. But if a cat were a sawmill, and 
a dog were a gigantic cart full of tin cans bounc- 
ing through a stone-paved street, and that dog and 
that cat hated each other and were telling each 
other so, it would sound much like it. 

It was well received. Except by Ravenswood 

[87] 



H 



ermione 



Wimble. He always has to have his little critical 
fling. 

"The peak of the Jungfrau!" he grumbled. 
"Jungf rau indeed ! It was Mont Blanc ! It was very 
wonderfully and subtly Mont Blanc ! But the Jung- 
frau — never !" 

"Hermione," I said, "what do you think of the 
New Art?" 

"It's wonderful !" she breathed, "just simply 
wonderful! So esoteric, and yet so simple! But 
there is one thing I am going to speak to Mrs. Voke 
Easeley about — one improvement I am going to 
suggest. His ears, you know — don't you think they 
are too large? Or too red, at least, for their size? 
They catch the eye too much — they take away from 
the effect. Before he sings here again I will have 
Mrs. Easeley bob them off a little." 



HERMIONE ON SUPERFICIALITY 

AREN'T you just crazy about the Moral Up- 
lift? 

It's coming into every department of life 
now and one just simply has to keep up with it in 
order to talk intelligently these days. 

Not that one can talk too freely about it in mixed 
company, you know. 

There are getting to be the awfullest lot of moral 
subjects that one can't talk about generally, aren't 
there ? 

Eugenics and sex hygiene and all these plays and 
books with a moral purpose, you know. 

Of course lots of people do talk about them gen- 
erally. I did myself for quite a while. And then 
another girl and I got some books and studied up 
what the things we had been talking of really were 
and it shocked us horribly ! 

Mamma has been trying to get me to give up the 
moral uplift entirely, but you've just simply got to 
talk it or be out of date. 

Of course the whole thing depends upon whether 
you are a serious thinker — if you're sincere, really 

[89] 



Hermione 

sincere, you can take up anything and get good out 
of it. 

The loveliest man talked to us last night — to our 
Little Group of Advanced Thinkers, you know. 

He said the curse of the age and the country was 
superficiality. People aren't thorough, you know. 

I've noticed that myself and I agree with him. 
If one is going to take things up and show a serious 
interest in them one must not limit one's self to a 
few phases. 

One must be broad. One must be thorough. 
One must cover the whole field of thought. 

Our little group this winter has been trying to 
do that. So far we've taken up Bergson, socialism, 
psychology, Rabindranath Tagore, the meaning of 
welfare work, culinary science, the new movements 
in art — and ever so many more things I can't re- 
member now. 

For the rest of Lent we're going to take up the 
Cosmic Consciousness. 

One of the girls thought it would be a nice sort 
of thing to take up during Lent — a quiet kind of 
thing, you know; not like feminism or chemistry. 

Have you seen any of the new parti-colored boots 
yet? 

Isn't it an absurd idea? 

And yet, you know — if it made for Beauty! 

That is what one must always say to one's self 

[90] 



Hermione on Superficiality 



— must one not? I mean: Does it make for 
Beauty ? 

That's the reason I left the Suffrage Party, you 
know. They wanted me to wear one of those hor- 
rid yellow sashes. And my complexion can't stand 
yellow. So I quit the Suffrage Party right there. 



ISIS, THE ASTROLOGIST 

WE'RE taking up astrology quite seriously—* 
our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you 
know — and we've hired the loveliest lady 
astrologer to cast our horoscopes and give us a talk 
and get us started right. 

She wrote a letter to me — the most perfectly fas- 
cinating letter — and I told her to call, and we 
looked her over. She wore a beautiful sky-blue 
gown with gold stars on it — one of those Greek 
ones, you know, like poor, dear Isadora Duncan 
wore — and a gold star in the middle of her fore- 
head. 

"It makes her look like a unicorn, that star," 
Ravenswood Wimble said. But then nobody ever 
pleases Ravenswood Wimble completely. He is 
so — if you get me. 

"If a unicorn, then a celestial unicorn," Fothy 
Finch said. Fothy is too dear for anything ; he is 
always hunting for the good in people, like Apollo, 
or Euripides — which was it? — when they gave him 
the basket full of wheat and chaff, and he separated 
them. Or maybe it was Diogenes. 

[92] 



I sis, the Astrologist 



She has six sisters, and they are all astrologers, 
and they call them the Pleiades. 

Although Voke Easeley, in his horrid slangy way, 
said: "Pleiades? She's a Bear!" 

Don't you just utterly loathe slang? 

But I was going to tell you about the lovely letter 
she wrote — that's what attracted me to her at the 
first. 

"Have you never asked yourself," it began, 
"'Why was I born?'" 

Fancy knowing that about one! If there is one 
question I have asked myself thousands and thou- 
sands of times it is, "Why was I born?" 

And then the letter went on to talk about horo- 
scopes and the Inevitable. 

"We may not overcome the Inevitable," it said, 
"but it is ours to see that the Inevitable does not 
overcome us." 

Oh, the Inevitable! The Inevitable! 

How often I have thought of the Inevitable with 
despair ! 

And it has never occurred to me before that one 
could take it and use it as one pleased. But it seems 
one can if one knows about it beforehand. It is 
like Destiny that way. If one is ignorant of one's 
Destiny, it comes upon one with a surprise. But 
if one knows beforehand what one's Destiny is to 
be, one can make oneself the master of it. That is 

[93] 



H 



ermione 



where the horoscope comes in so handy, you know. 

After dipping into Astrology I will never again 
be afraid of the Inevitable. 

As the Letter says: "Every woman with her 
horoscope before her, and her Soul back of her, 
should be able to solve any problem and meet any 
situation that may occur in her life." 

Ravenswood Wimble wanted to know, when he 
met the lady — did I tell you that her professional 
name is Isis? — what would happen if her Soul was 
before her and her horoscope back of her. But Isis 
just simply froze him with a look. 

Don't you think that levity is horrid in the midst 
of vital affairs like that ? 

But I suppose every little group has someone in 
it that thinks he or she has to be quippy and face- 
tious at times. 

Not but what I have a sense of humor myself. 

I think a sense of humor is the saving grace, if 
you get what I mean. 

But no one should try to use it unless he is per- 
fectly sure that everyone understands he is being 
humorous. 

We are going to take up the sense of humor — ■ 
our Little Group of Thinkers, you know — in a seri- 
ous way soon. 

But the Swami doesn't like Isis. Poor, dear 
Swami! She is a charlatan, he says. And she 

[94] 



I sis, the Astrologist 



doesn't like him. "My dear," she said to me, "are 
you sure he really goes into the Silences ? Or does 
he just pretend to?" 

Isn't it awful about geniuses that way — how jeal- 
ous they are of each other? Especially psychics! 
We had two mediums the same evening a year or 
two ago who actually quarreled over which one of 
them a certain spirit control belonged to. 



THE SIMPLE HOME FESTIVALS 

DON'T you just love the simple old festivals, 
like Thanksgiving Day and Christmas? 
That's one thing that Papa and Mamma 
and I agree about. And this year we had a very 
simple sort of a Thanksgiving Day. 

Of course, it's rather a bore if you have to invite 
a lot of relations. 

But one must always sacrifice something to gain 
the worth-while things, mustn't one? 

And what is more worth while than simplicity? 

Simplicity! Simplicity! Isn't it truly wonder- 
ful! 

Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask my- 
self : "Have I been simple and genuine today? Or 
have I failed?" 

Papa always has two maiden aunts to Thanks- 
giving dinner. Dear old souls, I suppose, but 
frumps, you know. 

And Fothergil Finch was there, too. I asked 
poor dear Fothy, because otherwise he would have 
had to eat in some restaurant. 

He tried to be agreeable to Papa's aunts— of 

[96] 



The Simple Home Festivals 



course, I suppose they are my great-aunts, but I 
never felt really related to them — but how could he 
know how terribly unadvanced they are? 

Fothy's only real interests center about Art, you 
know. And if he had talked of Art it would have 
been better. 

But, as he told me later, he thought he should 
try to meet my people on their own ground and 
talk of something practical. 

Something with a direct bearing on life, you* 
know. 

So he asked Aunt Evelyn what she thought of 
Trial Marriages. 

She didn't know exactly what he meant at first, 
but Aunt Fanny whispered something to her and 
she turned white and said, "Mercy !" 

Poor dear Fothy saw he must be on the wrong 
track, so he changed the subject and began to tell 
Aunt Fanny the plot of a new problem play. One 
of the sex ones, you know. 

"Heavens !" said Aunt Fanny, and began to trem- 
ble. 

And they drew their chairs nearer together and 
each one took a bottle of smelling salts out of a 
little black bag, and they sat and trembled and 
smelled their salts and stared at him perfectly fas- 
cinated. 

This embarrassed Fothy, but he thought his mis- 

[97] 



Her mi one 

take had been in talking about anything artistic, 
like a play, so he changed the subject again. He 
told me afterward that he felt if he could get onto 
a really practical subject all would go well. 

So he asked Aunt Evelyn what she thought about 
Genetics. 

"What are they?" asked Aunt Evelyn, her teeth 
chattering. 

"Why, Eugenics," said Fothy. And then he had 
to explain all about Eugenics. 

They sat perfectly still and stared at him, and he 
felt sure he had them interested at last, and he 
talked on and on about Eugenics and the Future 
Race, you know, and that led him back to Trial 
Marriages, and then he got onto the Twilight Sleep. 

And, as he said himself afterward, what could 
be more practical? 

But, you know, commonplace people never appre- 
ciate the efforts that serious thinkers make for 
them, and Aunt Evelyn refused to come to the 
table at all when dinner was announced. She said 
she had lost her appetite and felt faint. 

But Aunt Fanny came. She asked the blessing. 
Papa always has her do that on Thanksgiving Day 
and Christmas and New Year's. And she made a 
regular prayer out of it — prayed for Fothy, you 
know, right before him ; and prayed for me too. It 
was awful. 

[98] 



The Simple Home Festivals 



And afterward poor dear Fothy said he wished 
he had talked about Art. 

"It's safer," I said; "then people can't get 
offended, for nobody knows what you mean at all." 

"Oh," said Fothy, "nobody does?" And he went 
away quite melancholy and injured. 



CITRONELLA AND STEGOMYIA 

WE were talking about famous love affairs 
the other evening, and Fothergil Finch 
said he was thinking of writing a ballad 
about Citronella and Stegomyia. 

And, of course, everybody pretended they knew 
who Citronella and Stegomyia were. Mrs. Voke 
Easeley — youVe heard about Voke Easeley and his 
New Art, haven't you ? — Mrs. Voke Easeley said : 

"But don't you think those old Italian love affairs 
have been done to death?" 

"Italian?" said Fothy, raising his eyebrows at 
Mrs. Voke Easeley. 

You know, really, there wasn't a one of them 
knew who Citronella and Stegomyia were ; but they 
were all pretending, and they saw Mrs. Voke Ease- 
ley was in bad. And she saw it, too, and tried to 
save herself. 

"Of course," she said, "Citronella and Stegomyia 
weren't Italian lovers themselves. But so many of 
the old Italian poets have written about them that 
I always think of them as glowing stars in that 
wonderful, wonderful galaxy of Italian romance!" 

[ioo] 



Citronella and Stegomyia 



Fothy can be very mean when he wants to. So 
he said: 

"I don't read Italian, Mrs. Easeley. I have been 
forced to get all my information about Citronella 
and Stegomyia from English writers. Maybe you 
would be good enough to tell me what Italian poet 
it is who has turned out the most recent version of 
Citronella and Stegomyia ?" 

Mrs. Voke Easeley answered without a moment's 
hesitation: "Why, D'Annunzio, of course." 

That made everybody waver again. And Aurelia 
Dart said — she's that girl with the beautiful arms, 
you know, who plays the harp and always has a 
man or two to carry it about wherever she goes — 
somebody else's husband, if she can manage it — 
Aurelia said: 

"D'Annunzio, of course! Passages of it have 
been set to music." 

"Won't you play some of it ?" asked Fothy, very 
politely. 

"It has never been arranged for the harp," said 
Aurelia. "But if Mrs. Easeley can remember some 
of the lines, and will be good enough to repeat them, 
I will improvise for it." 

That put it up to Mrs. Easeley again, you know. 
She hates Aurelia, and Aurelia knows it. Voke 
Easeley carried Aurelia's harp around almost all 
last winter. And the only way Mrs. Easeley could 

[IOI] 



Hermione 

break Voke of it was to bring their little girl along 
— the one that has convulsions so easily, you know. 
And then when Voke was getting Aurelia's harp 
ready for her the little girl w 7 ould have a convul- 
sion, and Mrs. Easeley would turn her over to Voke, 
and Voke would have to take the little girl home, 
and Mrs. Easeley would stay and say what a family 
man and what a devoted husband Voke was, for an 
artist. 

Well, Mrs. Easeley wasn't stumped at all. She 
got up and repeated something. I took up Italian 
poetry one winter, and we made a special study of 
D'Annunzio; but I didn't remember what Mrs. 
Easeley recited. But Aurelia harped to it. Im- 
provising is one of the best things she does. 

And everybody said how lovely it was and how 
much soul there was in it, and, "Poor Stegomyia! 
Poor Citronella !" 

The Swami said it reminded him of some pas- 
sages in Tagore that hadn't been translated into 
English yet. 

Voke Easeley said: "The plaint of Citronella is 
full of a passion of dream that only the Italian 
poets have found the language for." 

Fothy winked at me and I made an excuse and 
slipped into the library and looked them up — and, 
well, would you believe it! — they weren't lovers at 
all ! And I might have known it from the first, for 

[102] 



Citronella and Stegomyia 



I always use citronella for mosquitoes in the coun- 
try. 

They were still pretending when I got back, all 
of them, and Aurelia was saying: "Citronella dif- 
fers psychologically from Juliet — she is more like 
poor, dear Francesca in her feeling of the cosmic 
inevitability of tragedy. But Stegomyia had a strain 
of Hamlet in him." 

"Yes, a strain of Hamlet," said Voke Easeley. 
"A strain of Hamlet in his nature, Aurelia — and 
more than a strain of Tristram!" 

"It is a thing that Maeterlinck should have writ- 
ten, in his earlier manner," said Mrs. Voke Easeley. 

"The story has its Irish counterpart, too," said 
Leila Brown, who rather specializes, you know, on 
all those lovely Lady Gregory things. "I have al- 
ways wondered why Yeats or Synge hasn't used it." 

"The essential story is older than Ireland," said 
the Swami. "It is older than Buddha. There are 
three versions of it in Sanskrit, and the young men 
sing it to this day in Benares." 

Affectation ! Affectation ! Oh, how I abhor af- 
fectation ! 

It was perfectly horrid of Fothy just the same. 

Anyone might have been fooled. 

I might have been myself, if I were not too in- 
tellectually honest, and Fothy hadn't tipped me 
the wink. 

[103] 



HERMIONE'S SALON OPENS 



Perchance last night you felt the world careen, 
Leap in its orbit like a punished pup 
Which hath a hornet on his burning bean? 
Last night, last night — historic yestere'en! — 
Hermione's Salon was opened up! 



II 



Without, the night was cold. But Thought, within, 
Roared through the rooms as red and hot as Sin. 
Without, the night was calm; within, the surge 
And snap of Thought kept up a crackling din 
As if in sport the well-known Cosmic Urge 
With Psychic Slapsticks whacked the dome and 

shin 
Of Swami, Serious Thinker, Ghost and Goat. 
From soup to nuts, from Nut to Super Freak, 
From clams to coffee, all the Clans were there.. 
The groggy Soul Mate groping for its Twin, 
The burbling free verse Blear, the Hobo Pote, 

[104] 



Hermione's Salon Opens 



Clairvoyant, Cubist Bug and Burlapped Greek, 
Souse Socialists and queens with bright green hair, 
Ginks leading barbered Art Dogs trimmed and 

sleek, 
The Greenwich Stable Dwellers, Mule and Mare, 
Pale Anarchs, tamed and wrapped in evening duds, 
Philosophers who go wherever suds 
Flow free, musicians hunting after eats, 
And sandaled dames who hang from either ear 
Strange lumps — "art jools" — the size of pickled 

beets, 
Writers that write not, hunting Atmosphere, 
Painters and sculptors that ne'er paint nor sculp, 
Reformers taking notes on Brainstorm Slum, 
Cave Men in Windsor Ties, all gauche and glum, 
With strong iron jaws that crush their food to 

pulp, 
And bright Boy Cynics playing paradox, 
And th' inevitable She that knitteth Belgian socks — 
A score of little groups ! — all bees that hum 
About the futile blooms of Piffledom. 



in 



A wan Erotic Rotter told me that 
The World could not be Saved except through Sin; 
A she Eugenist, sexless, flabby, fat, 
With burst veins winding through unhealthy skin, 

[105] 



Her mi one 

With loose, uncertain lips preached Purity ; 

A Preacher blasphemed just to show he dared ; 

A dame praised Unconventionality 

In words her secretary had prepared; 

A bare4egg'd painter garbed in leopard hide 

Quarreled with a Chinese lyre and scared the dogs ; 

A slithering Dancer slunk from side to side 

In weird, ungodly, Oriental togs ; 

A pale, anaemic, frail Divinity 

Confided that she thought the great Blond Beast 

Himself was Art's own true Affinity; 

An Anarch gloomed ; "The Mummy at the Fe'ast 

Gets all the pleasure from the festive board !" 

I know not what they meant; I only wunk 

Within myself, and praised the great god Bunk. 

A Yogi sought the Silences and snored. 



IV 



But 'twas Hermione that Got the Hand ! 
Ah, yes, she talked! Of Purpose, and of Soul, 
And how Life's parts are Equal to its Whole. 
And Thought — and do the Masses Understand? 
She lightly touched on Life and Love and Death, 
And Cosmic Consciousness, and on Unrest, 
Substance and Shadow, Solid Things and Breath, 
The New Art movements her sweet voice caressed, 
Philanthropy, Genetics, Social Duty, 

[106] 



Hermione's Salon Opens 



The Mother-Teacher claimed a passing smile, 
And she made clear we all must worship Beauty 
And Concentrate on Things that are Worth While. 
"Each night," she said, "each night ere I retire 
Into the Depths I peer, and I inquire, 
'Have I today some Worth-while Summit scaled? 
Or have I failed to climb ? Oh, have I failed ? 
These little talks between the Self and Soul — 
Oh, don't you think ? — still help us toward the Goal ; 
They help us shape the Universal Laws 
In sweet accordance with our glorious Cause!" 
"Hermione," said I, "they do! they do!" 
"Thank you," said she, "I knew you'd understand !" 
I said to her, the while I pressed her hand, 
"All, all, my interest I owe to you !" 

And then I left, and following my feet 

Soon found that they had led me to the street. 



And there I found a burly Garbage Man 

Who through bleak winter nights from can to can 

Goes on his ashy way, sans rest or pause, 

Goes on his way, still faithful to his Cause. 

"Tell me," said I, "if now across the verge 
Of night should come the kindly Cosmic Urge, 

[107] 



Her mi one 

Strong-armed and virile, full of vim and yelp, 
And offer you with these here cans to help, 
Would you accept the Cosmic Urge's aid, 
Or would you rise up free and unafraid 
And say, 'My restless Personality 
Bids me return a negative to thee !' " 

"Old scout," says he, "I've never really brought 
My intellects to bear on that there thought ! 
I gets no help, I asks no help from none — 
But I have noticed, bo, that one by one, 
And soon or late, and gradual, day by day, 
Most things in life eventual comes my way! 
Into the Ashes Can the whole world goes, 
Old hats, old papers, toys and styles and clo'es, 
Eventual they dump 'em down the bay!" 



VI 



Symbolic Garbage Man ! Sans rest or pause, 
In steadfast faith work for thy sacred Cause! 
Some time, perhaps, all piles of twisted bunk, 
All half-baked faddists, heaps of mental junk, 
Unto the waiting Scow we'll cart away 
Eventual to dump 'em down the bay! 



THE PERFUME CONCERT 

THE loveliest man gave us a talk the other 
evening — our Little Group of Serious 
Thinkers, you know — on the Art of the 
Future. 

And what do you think it is to be ? You'd never 
guess ! Never ! 

The entertainment of the future will be a Per- 
fume Concert! 

Every scent, if you get what I mean, corresponds 
to some color, and every color corresponds to some 
sound, and every sound corresponds to some emo- 
tion. 

And the truly esthetic person — the one who is 
Sensitized, if you get what I mean — will hear a 
tone on the violin, and see a color, and think pas- 
sionately of the One he Loves, all at the same 
time, just through smelling a Rose. 

Only, of course, it must be the right kind of a 
rose. 

Papa — poor dear Papa is so coarse and crude 
sometimes in his attempts to be witty — Papa says it 
would be a fine idea to lead the man who talked to 

[109] 



Hermione 

us into a boiled cabbage foundry and then watch 
him die of the noise. Papa is not Sensitized; he 
doesn't understand that the esthete really would 
die — Papa resists the vibrations of the esthetic en- 
vironment with which I have striven to surround 
him, if you get what I mean. 

Oh, to be Sensitized! To be Sensitized! To vi- 
brate like a reed in the wind ! To thrill like a petal 
in the sun! 

I'm having a study of my aura made. You 
know, one's soul gives off certain colors, and if 
one's individuality is to be in tune with the Cosmic 
All, one must take care that the colors about one 
do not jar with one's own Psychic Hue. 

And after one has found one's soul color, one can 
find the scent to match that color, if you get what I 
mean. 

I am going to have the house re-decorated, with 
a sweet subtle blending of perfumes in every room? 

I have always been good at matching things, 
anyhow — I perceive affinities at a glance. Psychic 
people do. 

When I was quite a small child Mamma always 
used to take me with her to the shops if there were 
ribbons or anything like that to be matched. 

I just loved it, even as a baby! And I think 
it is the greatest fun yet. 

Often I go through half a dozen shops, not be- 

[no] 



The Perfume Concert 



cause I want to buy anything, but just to match 
colors, you know. It gives me a thrill that nothing 
else does. 

Some of us are like that — some of us truly Sen- 
sitized Souls — we function, I mean, quite without 
being able to stop it — I hope you follow me. Isn't 
it wonderful to be in touch with the Universe in 
that way! Not, of course, that the shop girls who 
show you the fabrics and things are always under- 
standing. 

The working classes are so often ungrateful to 
us advanced thinkers. Sometimes I am almost pro- 
voked to the point of giving up my Social Better- 
ment work when I think how ungrateful they are. 
But some of us, in every age, must suffer at the 
hands of the masses for the sake of the masses, if 
you know what I mean. 



ON BEING OTHER-WORLDLY 

IT is not enough to be merely unworldly. 
One must be Other- Worldly as well, if you 
get what I mean. 

For what does all our Modern Thought amount 
to if it does not minister to the Beautiful and the 
Spiritual ? 

Isn't Materialism simply frightful f 

For the undisciplined mind, I mean. Of course, 
the right sort of mind will get good even out of 
Materialism, and the wrong sort will get harm out 
of it. 

Every time before I take up anything new I ask 
myself, "Is it OJ/^r-Worldly? Or is it not Other- 
Worldly?" 

We were going to take up Malthusianism and 
Mendelism — our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, 
you know — and give a whole evening to them, but 
one of the girls said, "Oh, let's not take them up. 
They sound frightfully chemical, somehow !" 

I said, "The question, my dear, is not whether 
they are chemical or un-chemical. The question is, 
Are they worldly? Or are they Other- Worldly?" 

[112] 



On Being Other-Worldly 



That is the Touchstone. One can apply it to 
everything, simply everything! 

Should teachers be mothers, for instance — that 
question came up for discussion the other evening. 
And I settled the whole matter at once, with one 
question: "Is it worldly? Or is it Other- Worldly 
for Teachers to be Mothers? Or is it merely Un- 
Worldly?" 

Have you seen the latest models ? Some of them 
are wonderful, simply wonderful! You know I 
always dress to my temperament — and I'm having 
the loveliest gown made — the skirt is ecru lace, you 
know ; a double tiered effect, falling from a straight 
bodice, and the color scheme is silver and blue. 



PARENTS, AND THEIR INFLUENCE 

MAMMA is unadvanced enough, goodness 
knows ! 

But poor, dear Papa! 

"Papa," I said to him the other day, "all con- 
servatives worth listening to were radicals in their 
youth." The loveliest man told us that the other 
night — our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you 
know — and it struck me as being profound. 

And isn't profundity fascinating? 

But Papa only glowered and said, "Umph!" 

Papa, you know, is an obstructionist. 

"Papa," I said to him, "what is stubbornness in 
you has become will power in me. You will never 
dominate me — never! You should study heredity; 
it's wonderful, simply wonderful!" 

Papa scowled and said "Umph !" 

But you know, Parents are Doomed. 

Our little group listened to a talk the other eve- 
ning about Parents. Mothers, particularly. 

"The Menace of the Mother," it was called. I 
always make note of titles. 

This man said — he was a regular savant — I wish 

[ii4] 



Parents, and Their Influence 



you could have heard him — my, if I weren't such 
an advanced thinker, I would be a savant 

Anyhow, he said, this savant, that Mothers held 
back Civilization through Selfishness — they teach 
the Child, you know, that it is — er, well, you know, 
they lose sight of Ulterior Ethics and Race Mo- 
rality while inculcating Individual Self-Improve- 
ment. ' 

It's frightful to think about it, isn't it? Simply 
frightful! 

Then and there I resolved that if I were ever a 
Mother I would turn over the up-bringing of my 
children to experts and savants and specialists like 
that. 

"Papa," I said, "you allowed poor, dear Mamma 
to make me selfish — you know you did! What 
have you to say for yourself ? What right had you 
to make me a Self-indulgent Individualist?" 

And, you know, I have struggled and struggled 
to get rid of the selfishness my parents trained into 
me. How I strive for Harmony and Humility! 
Nearly every night before I go to bed I say to my- 
self : "Have I been humble today? Truly humble? 
Or have I failed?" 

Children are not nearly simple enough these days. 

Oh, for more Simplicity! That is what we all 
need. 

Though I will say this for Mamma — that it 

[us] 



Hermione 

would have been hard to train Simplicity into me 
even if she had known how. 

I had such a high-strung, sensitive, nervous or- 
ganism as a child, you know. 

At a very early age my temperament began to 
show. 

And one cannot hide one's temperament. 

Especially if one is at all psychic, and I am, 
very. 

But if I ever have Children — well, I will take no 
chances with them. 

To begin with, I will Select their Father. 

Mamma said, when I told her that : "Hermione, 
you are horrid!" 

Poor dear Mamma ! She's so stupid ! "Mamma," 
I said to her, "of course I don't mean free love. 
I'm not that advanced, I hope ! Though some very 
Nice People have written of it — it's quite respect- 
able, as a theory. But you're hopelessly old- 
fashioned. I will select the Parent of my Off- 
spring ; you were selected." 

Mamma only groaned and said: "Anything but 
a Cave-man, Hermione." 

But I am not sure. It comes back to me again 
and again how Primitive I am in some ways. 

And to wander barefoot in the dew ! 

Not really quite barefoot, of course — but with 
some of the new sandals on. 

[116] 



FOTHERGIL FINCH TELLS OF HIS RE- 
VOLT AGAINST ORGANIZED SOCIETY 

BERTIE GRIGGS— you know Ethelbert 
Griggs, don't you? He does the text for 
the Paris fashions for a woman's magazine, 
and on the side he writes the most impassioned 
verse. All about Serpents, and Women, and Lillith 
and Phryne, you know. 

Bertie said to me only the other day, "Fothy, you 
are too Radical. It will keep you down in the 
world." 

"Bertie," I said, "I know I am, but can I help 
it? I spurn the world! A truly virile poet must." 

"Some day, Fothy," he said, "you will come into 
contact with the law." 

I only laughed. Bitterly, I suppose, for Bertie 
looked at me quite shocked. 

"Bertie," I said, "I expect Persecution. I wel- 
come it. All great souls do. I look for it. On 
one pretext or another, I will be flung into prison 
when my next volume, 'Clamor, Cries and Curses' 
comes out." 

And I will, too, if I ever find a publisher who 

[ii7] 



Hermione 

dares to bring it out. But they are all too cow- 
ardly ! 

"Fothy," he said, "you Revolutionists are always 
talking — but what do you ever do?" 

I arose with dignity. "Bertie," I said, "I am 
ready to suffer for the Cause." I turned and left 
him. I must have been pale with resolve, for he 
ran after me and caught me by the wrist. But I 
shook him off. 

I was in a desperate mood. 

"Curses upon all their Conventions !" I said, as I 
turned up the street toward Central Park. "Curses 
upon all organized society!" 

I stopped in front of Columbus's statue, at Co- 
lumbus Circle. 

"Fool," I muttered bitterly, "to discover a new 
world!" 

I shook my fist at the statue and went on. 

I wandered over to the place where they keep 
the animals, and stopped in front of one of the 
monkey cages. 

Dear, unconventional little beasts ! They always 
charm my blacker moods away from me ! So free, 
so untrammeled, so primitive! 

I smiled at a monkey. He smiled at me. I held 
up a peanut. He reached out his hand for it. 

I was about to fling it to him when I saw a sign 
that read: 

[118] 



F other gil Finch's Revolt 



"Visitors are warned not to feed the animals 
under the penalty of the law." 

Always their laws! Always their restrictions! 
Always their damnable shackles! Always this de- 
nial of the rights of the individual! 

For a moment I stood there with the peanut in 
my hand just simply too angry for anything ! 

And then I cried out, quite loudly : "Curses upon 
organized society! I will break its laws! I will 
feed the animals!'' 

Always in times of great crisis I see myself quite 
plainly as if I were some other person; poets often 
do, you know ; and I could not help thinking of the 
pose of Ajax defying the lightning. 

"I will break the law!" I cried. "So there!" 

And with that I flung the peanut right into the 
cage with all my might, and ran away, laughing 
mockingly as I ran. 

I felt that I had crossed the Rubicon, and that 
night I sat down and wrote my revolutionary poem, 
"The Defiance." 

What the Cause needs is men with Vision to see 
and Courage to perform! This is the age of Vi- 
rility ! 



THE EXOTIC AND THE UNEMPLOYED 

WE'VE been taking up the Exotic this week 
— in poetry and painting, you know, and 
all that sort of thing — and its influence 
on our civilization. 

Really, it's wonderful — simply wonderful! Quite 
different from the Erotic, you know, and from the 
Esoteric, too — though they're all mixed up with it 
sometimes. 

Odd, isn't it, how all these new movements seem 
to be connected with one another? 

One of the chief differences between the Exotic in 
art and other things — such as the Esoteric, for in- 
stance — is that nearly everything Exotic seems to 
have crept into our art from abroad. 

Don't you think some of those foreign ideas are 
apt to be — well, dangerous? That is, to the un- 
trained mind? 

You can carry them too far, you know — and if 
you do they work into your subconsciousness. 

One of the girls — she belongs to the same Little 
Group of Advanced Thinkers that I do — has been so 
taken with the Exotic that she wears orchids all the 

[120] 



The Exotic and the Unemployed 

time and just simply craves Chinese food. "My 
love," she said to me only yesterday, "I feel that I 
must have chop suey or I'll die!" The Exotic has 
worked into her subliminal being, you know. 

She has an intense and passionate nature, and 
I'm sure I don't know what would become of her 
if it were not for the spiritual discipline she gets 
out of modern thought. 

Next week we're taking up Syndicalism — it's 
frightfully interesting, they say, and awfully ad- 
vanced. 

I suppose it's a new kind of philosophy or social- 
ism, or maybe anarchy — or something like that. 
Most of these new things that come along nowadays 
are something like that, aren't they? 

I'm sure the world owes a debt to its advanced 
thinkers which it can never repay for always keep- 
ing abreast of topics like that. 

Not that I've lost my interest in any of the older 
forms of sociology, you know, just because I am 
keeping up with the newer phases of it. 

Only yesterday I rode about town in the car and 
had the chauffeur stop a while every place where 
they were shoveling snow. 

The nicest man was with me — he is connected 
with a settlement, and has given his life to sociology 
and all that sort of thing. 

"Just think," I said to him, "how much real prac- 

[121] 



Hermione 

tical sociology we have right here before us — all 
these men shoveling snow — and how little they real- 
ize, most of them, that their work is taking them 
into sociology at all." 

He didn't say anything, but he seemed impressed. 

And I'm sure the unemployed should be grateful 
to the serious thinkers for the careful study we 
give them. Don't you think so? 



SOULS AND TOES 

I went to a Soul Fight at Hermione's 

And nothing normal can describe it . . . 

It was beyond rhyme, reason, rum, rhubarb or 

rhythm . . . 
Therefore, Vers Libre Muse, help me! 
Imagist outcast with the bleary eyes, 
My Psychic Pup, my poly rhythmic hound, lift up 

your voice and help me howl ! 
Tenth Muse, doggerel muse, slink hither, brute, 
And lick your master's hand . . . Fve need of 

thee .... 
Come cater cornered on three legs with doubtful tail 

and eager eyes . . . 
Tomorrow I may bash you in the ribald ribs again 
And publicly disown you; 
But oh ! today Fve need of thee . . . 
Winged mongrel, mutt divine, come here and help 

me bay the piebald moon! 

It was a Soul Fight at Hermione's . . . 
A fat Terpsichore with polished toes ... a bare- 
foot she Soul 

[123] 



Hermione 

With ten Achaian toes . . . and each toe had a sep- 
arate Soul, she said . . . 

Was there . . . there with both feet . . . both 
Grecian feet . . . 

Was there . . . not only there, but IT. 

She sat upon a couch and lectured . . . not with 
words, 

But with her toes, her eloquent, her temperamental 
toes . . . 

Her toes that had trod (so she said) the paths of 
beauty 

Since Hector was a pup at Troy . . . 

She sat upon a couch . . . bards, swamis and Her- 
miones, 

Gilt souls and purple, melomaniacs, yellow souls 
and blue, 

Souse socialists and other cognac-scented cogno- 
scenti, 

Post-cubist chicles that would ne'er jell into 
gum . . . 

All, all the little groups from all the brainstorm 
slums . . . 

Why specify? . . . we know our little groups! 
. . . were there . . . 

Were there to worship at those feet ... to vi- 
brate and change color with the moods of 
those unusual feet. . . . 
[124] 



Souls and Toes 



"This toe," she said, "is Beauty . . . this is 

Art . . . 
This toe is Italy, and this is Greece. " . . . 
A poet, quite beside himself with inspiration, 
Suddenly arose and cried: 

"This little pig went to market, 
This little pig stayed at home — 
This little pig was Greece, 
This little pig was Rome!" 

But they chilled him ... he went Into the Si- 
lences . . . 

And Terpsichore resumed : 

"My ten toes are: Beauty, Art, Italy, Greece, 
Life, Music, Psyche, Color, Motion, Liberty! 

Put yourself into a receptive attitude now, and 
Beauty will speak to you!" 

And while a satellite ran rosy fingers down a lute, 
she moved the toe named Beauty to and 
fro . . . 



A hush fell on the assembled nuts, as Beauty 

moved . . . 
As Beauty spoke to them . . . 
"I see," murmured Hermione to Fothergil Finch, 

"I see, 
As that toe moves . . . the Isles of Greece . . . 

and Aphrodite rising 

[125] 



Hermione 

From the Acropolis." . . . "You mean," said Foth- 

ergil, "from the yEgean!" . . . 
"It is all one," said Hermione, "the point is that 

I see her rising!" 

Then Color spoke to them . . . 

"As that toe moves," said Ravenswood Wimble, "I 
see the heavens 

Turned into one vast kaleidoscope ... all the stars 
and moons 

Dance through my soul like flakes of colored glass !" 

Then waved the toe called Life, and as with one 
accord each of that company 

Leapt gasping to his or her feet, as the case might 
be, 

And cried: "I feel! I feel! I feel! I feel the Cos- 
mic Urge!" 

Then moved the toe called Italy, 

And Fothergil Finch remarked: "Roses . . . 

roses . . . roses . . . 
Onions and roses . . . roses are onions, and onions 

are beautiful . . . 
Doves and pigeons . . . pigeons . . . pigeons are 

pigs . . . 
And pigs are beautiful" . . . 
And then the serious thinkers cried as one: 
"Ah! Pigs are Beautiful!" 

[126] 



Souls and Toes 



"Ah, Italy; oh, Italy!" cried Fothy Finch, 
"Oh, never cease to move . . . Italy . . . gar- 
lic .. . Venice . . . 
Oh, bind my brows with garlic, lovely land, and 

turn me loose!" 
And as the toe called Italy still moved 
The little groups made it into a chant, and sang: 
"Oh, bind my brows with garlic, love, and turn me 

loose!" 

* # # 

"Hermione," I asked her afterward, 

"Did you really see and feel anything when those 

educated toes wiggled?" 
"How can you ask?" she said, very up-stagey. 
"Hermione," I said, "we are old enough friends by 

this time, so we can deal frankly with one 

another. Tell me on the square ... did you 

get it?" 
"You are blaspheming at the shrine of Art!" she 

said. 
"Hermione! You are dodging!" 
"Did you notice," she said irrelevantly, "the nail 

polish she was using? 
"It's quite the latest thing! For finger nails, too, 

you know. That delicate rose pink, with just 

the touch of creaminess in it ! It's the creamy 

tint that's new, you know. Isn't it just simply 

wonderful !" 

[127] 



KULTUR, AND THINGS 

DO you know, Kultur isn't the same thing at 
all as culture . . . fancy! 
When we took it up — Kultur, I mean — 
yes, we took it up in quite a serious way the other 
evening — our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you 
know — and threshed it out thoroughly — we hadn't 
the slightest idea that it would lead us straight to 
Nietzsche and — and, well, all those people like that, 
if you get what I mean. Though, of course, as the 
man who spoke to us — he was the loveliest person ! 
— spoke in German, we may have missed some of 
the finer shades. 

Oh, yes, I had German in high school . . . real- 
ly, I was quite proficient . . . although, of course, 
it's such a guttural kind of language — don't you 
think? — that one wonders how they ever sing it. 
And then, the verbs! . . . but I had Latin verbs 
about the same time, you know . . . and really, 
isn't it surprising how some of those foreign lan- 
guages seem to run to verbs, if you get what I 
mean? 

It seems it was the Germans who invented the 

[128] 



Kultur, and Things 



Superman . . . and I suppose we must be grateful 
to them for that, no matter what they may have 
done with him after they invented him. . . . 

I used to be quite taken with the Superman, you 
know. . . . [Really, I didn't recognize how dan- 
gerous he might become. . . . 

I didn't know he was German at all when we 
took him up. . . . 

Have you read anything about the Blond Beast? 

I felt rather attracted toward him for a long 
time myself . . . until lately. . . . But the attrac- 
tion passed. . . . I'm not brunette, you know, at 
all. . . . Likely that's why I lost interest in 
him. . . . 

Aren't affinities between people of different com- 
plexion simply wonderful! 

It makes one wonder if the Eugenists can be right 
after all! 

Fothergil Finch says that's where the Eugenists 
fall down. . . . He says they don't take account 
of Affinities at all. 

Sometimes one finds it very puzzling — doesn't 
one ? — the way these modern causes and movements 
seem to contradict one another! 

But if one is in tune with the Cosmic All these 
little inconsistencies don't matter. 

The Cosmic All! . . . what would we do with- 
out it? 

[129] 



Hermione 

How do you suppose people ever got along a 
generation or two ago before the Cosmos and all 
that sort of thing was discovered? 

I've often thought of it . . . and of what life 
must have been like in those days! As Emerson 
. . . or was it Emerson? . . . says in one of his 
poems: "Better a year of Europe than a cycle of 
Cathay!" 

That's what Fothy Finch says he always feels 
about Brooklyn . . . though I will say this for 
Brooklyn — the first girl I saw with courage enough 
to wear one of those ankle watches on the street 
lived in Brooklyn. 

But don't you think Brooklyn people are rather 
like that ... go to the latest things in dress, you 
know, in an extreme sort of way, so that people 
won't suspect they live in Brooklyn? 



THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS 

ISN'T the Christmas festival just simply won- 
derful? 

For days beforehand I feel so uplifted — so, 
well, other-worldly — if you know what I mean. 

Isn't it just dreadful that any material considera- 
tions have to spoil such a sacred time? 

It does seem to me that somehow we might free 
ourselves of worldliness and greediness and just 
rise to the spiritual significance of the day. If only 
we could! 

And what a blessing it would be to the poor, tired 
shop girls if we could! 

Though, of course, they, the shop girls, I mean, 
must be upheld even in their weariest moments by 
the thought that they are helping on the beautiful 
impulse of giving! 

When they reflect that every article they sell is 
to be a gift from one thoughtful and loving heart 
to another they must forget the mere fatigue of the 
flesh and just feel the stimulus, the inspiration, the 
vibration ! 

There are gifts, I admit, that haven't the divine 

[131] 



Hermione 

spark of love to hallow them, but after all there 
aren't so many of that sort. Love one another is 
the spirit of Christmas — and it prevails, whatever 
the skeptics may say to the contrary. And though 
it's a pity there has to be a material side to 
Christmas at all, it's so comforting, so ennobling 
to realize that back of the material gifts is Brotherly 
Love. 

It quite reassures one about the state of the world ; 
it certainly isn't getting worse with Brotherly Love 
and the Spirit of Giving animating everybody. 

Of course, Christmas giving is a problem some- 
times. It is so embarrassing when somebody you'd 
forgotten entirely sends you a present. 

I always buy several extra things just for that 
emergency. Then, when an unexpected gift ar- 
rives, I can rush off a return gift so promptly that 
nobody'd ever dream I hadn't meant to send it all 
along. 

And I always buy things I'd like to have myself, 
so that if they aren't needed for unexpected people 
they're still not wasted. 

With all my spirituality, I have a practical side, 
you see. 

All well balanced natures have both the spiritual 
and the practical side. It's so essential, nowadays, 
to be well balanced, and it's a great relief to me to 
find I can be practical. It saves me a lot of trouble, 

[132] 



The Spirit of Christmas 



too, especially about this problem of Christmas 
giving. . 

I know the value of material things, for instance. 
And I never waste money giving more expensive 
presents to my friends than I receive from them. 
That's one of the advantages of having a well bal- 
anced nature, a practical side. 

And, anyway, the value of a gift is not in the 
cost of it. Quite cheap things, when they represent 
true thought and affection, are above rubies. 

Mamma and Papa are going to get me a pearl 
necklace, just to circle the throat, but beautifully 
matched pearls. I wouldn't care for an ostenta- 
tiously long string of pearls anyway. 

Poor, dear Papa says he really can't afford it — 
with times so hard, and those dear, pathetic Euro- 
peans on everybody's hands, you know — but Mam- 
ma made him understand how necessary beauty is 
to me, and he finally gave in. 

Isn't it just wonderful how love rules us all at 
Christmas time? 




POOR DEAR MAMMA AND FOTHERGIL 

FINCH 

(Hermione's Boswell Loquitur) 
ERMIONE'S mother, who has figured so 
often as "Poor dear Mamma" in these 
pages, has come out definitely for Suffrage. 
Someone told her that there was an alliance between 
the liquor interests and the anti-Suffragists and she 
believed it, and it shocked her. 

Since the activities of her daughter have brought 
her into contact with Modern Thought her life has 
been chiefly passed in one or another of three 
phases: She has just been shocked, she is being 
shocked, or she fears that she is about to be shocked. 
She is nearing fifty and rather stout, though her 
figure is still not bad. She has an abundance of 
chestnut hair, all her own, and naturally wavy ; her 
hands are pretty, her feet are pretty, her face is 
pretty. Her mouth is very small, almost dispro- 
portionately so, and her eyes are very large and 
blue and very wide open. She was intended for a 
placid woman, but Hermione and Modern Thought 
have made complete placidity impossible. She has 

[134] 



Poor Dear Mamma and Fothergil Finch 

a fondness for rich brocades and pretty fans and 
chocolate candy and big bowls of roses and com- 
fortable chairs. When she was Hermione's age 
she used to do water color sketches; the outlines 
were penciled in by her drawing teacher, and she 
washed on the color very smoothly and neatly; but 
she heard a great many stories concerning the dis- 
solute lives that artists lead and she gave it up. 
Nevertheless, she sometimes says: "Hermione 
comes by her interest in Art quite naturally." 

Fothergil Finch and I called recently. Hermione 
was not in, and her mother suggested that we wait 
for her. Hermione's mother looks upon all of 
Hermione's friends with more or less suspicion, 
and she would not permit Fothergil in particular to 
be about the place for a moment if she were not 
obliged to ; but she does not have the requisite stern- 
ness of character to resist her daughter. Fothergil, 
knowing that he is not approved of, scarcely does 
himself justice when Hermione's mother is pres- 
ent ; although he endeavors to avoid offending her. 

"Have you seen the play, 'Young America'?" 
asked Fothergil, searching for a safe topic of con- 
versation. 

A little ripple of alarm immediately ruffled the 
lakeblue innocence of her eyes. 

"If it is a Problem Play, I have not," she said. 
"I consider such things dangerous." 

[135] 



Hermione 

"But it isn't, you know," said Fothergil eagerly. 
"It's a — a — it's a perfectly nice play. It's about 
a dog!" 

"About a dog !" Her eyebrows went up, and her 
mouth rounded itself with the conviction that no 
perfectly nice play could possibly be about a dog. 
"I think that is dreadfully Coarse!" she said. 

"But it isn't," protested Fothergil. "It's just the 
sort of thing you'd like." 

"Indeed!" She felt slightly insulted at his as- 
sumption of what she would like, and dismissed 
the subject with a wave of her pretty hand. Fother- 
gil tried again. 

"I hope," he said ingratiatingly, "that you haven't 
been bothered much by mosquitoes." She looked 
a bit frightened, but said nothing, and he dashed on 
determinedly. "You know, this is a new variety 
of mosquitoes we've been having this year. Most 
of them have stripes on their legs, you know, but 
these have black legs this year. But maybe you 
haven't noticed " 

He stopped in midcareer. The preposterous idea 
that she could be interested in examining the legs 
of mosquitoes had too evidently outraged Her- 
mione's mother. Fothergil, flushed and embar- 
rassed, tried to make it better and made it worse. 

"Maybe you haven't noticed their — er — limbs," 
'said Fothergil. 

[136] 



Poor Dear Mamma and Fothergil Finch 

"I have not/' she murmured. 

Fothergil desperately persevered. 

"We don't see so much as we used to of— 

of " (I am sure he didn't know how he was 

going to finish the sentence when he began it, but 
he plunged ahead) — "of the Queen Anne styl$ of 
architecture." 

With visible relief, and yet with a lurking suspi- 
cion, she assented. And Fothergil, feeling himself 
on safe ground at last, went on : 

"Don't you think she was one of the most inter- 
esting queens in English history — Queen Anne? 
Do you remember the anecdote " 

But she checked him, frightened again : 

"I do not wish to hear it, Mr. Finch," she said. 

"But," said Fothergil, "she was a most unex- 
ceptionable Queen — not like, er — not like — well, 
Cleopatra, you know, or any of those bad ones." 

Hermione's mother was silent, but it was appar- 
ent that she feared the talk was about to veer toward 
Cleopatra. 

"When I was a girl," she said, "the lives of 
queens were considered rather dangerous reading 
for young women. You need not go into details, 
please." 

I couldn't stand it any more myself. "If you'll 
just tell Hermione I called," I said, edging toward 
the door. Fothergil, however, stuck it out. In the 

[137] 



Her mi one 

frenzy of embarrassment he must have lost his 
head completely. For as I left I heard him be- 
ginning : 

"Did you read the story in the papers today of 
the man who killed his wife ? Crimes of passion are 
becoming more and more frequent. . . ." 



PRISON REFORM AND POISE 

AREN'T you just crazy about prison reform? 
The most wonderful man talked to us — to 
our Little Group of Advanced Thinkers, you 
know — about it the other evening. 

It made me feel that I'd be willing to do anything 
— simply anything! — to help those poor, unfortunate 
convicts. Collect money, you know, or give talks, 
or read books about them, or make any other 
sacrifice. 

Even got them jobs. One ought to help them to 
start over again, you know. 

Though as for hiring one of them myself, or 
rather getting Papa to — well, really, you know, 
one must draw the line somewhere! 

But it's a perfectly fascinating subject to take up, 
prison reform is. 

It gives one such a sense of brotherhood — and of 
service — it's so broadening, don't you think? — tak- 
ing up things like that? 

And one must be broad. I ask myself every 
night before I go to bed : "Have I been broad to- 
day? Or have I failed?" 

[139] 



Hermlone 

Though, of course, one can be too broad, don't 
you think? 

What I mean is, one must not be so broad that 
one loses one's poise in the midst of things. 

Poise ! That is what this age needs ! 

I suppose you've heard wide-brimmed hats are 
coming in again? 



AN EXAMPLE OF PSYCHIC POWER 



H 



AVE you thought deeply concerning the 
Persistence of Personal Identity? 

We took it up the other evening — our 
little group, you know — in quite a thorough way — ■ 
devoted an entire evening to it. 

You see, there's a theory that after Evolution has 
evolved just as far as it possibly can, everything 
will go to smash, but then Evolution will start all 
over again. And everything that has happened be- 
fore will happen again. 

Only the question is whether the people to whom 
it is happening again will know whether they 
are the same people to whom it has happened 
before. 

That's where the question of the Persistence of 
Personal Identity comes in. Frightfully fascinat- 
ing, isn't it? 

For my part I'd just as soon not be reincarnated 
as to be reincarnated and not know anything about 
it, wouldn't you? 

Of course, one's Subliminal Consciousness might 
know about it, and give one intimations. 

[141] 



H 



ermione 



I've had intimations like that myself — really! 

I'm dreadfully psychic, you know. 

Sometimes I quite startle people with my psychic 
power. 

Fothergil Finch was here the other evening-^ 
you know Fothergil Finch, the poet, don't you? — 
and I astounded him utterly by reading his inmost 
thoughts. 

He had just finished reading one of his poems — 
a vers libre poem, you know ; all about Strength and 
Virility, and that sort of thing. Fothergil is just 
simply fascinated by Strength and Virility, though 
you never would think it to look at him — he is so — 
so — well, if you get what I mean you'd think to 
look at him that he'd be writing about violets instead 
of cave men. 

"Fothy," I said, when he had finished reading 
the poem, "I know what you are thinking — what 
you are feeling!" 

"What?" he said. 

"You're thinking," I said, "how wonderful a 
thing is the Cosmic Urge !" 

Thoughts come to me just like that — leap to me — - 
right out of nowhere, so to speak. 

Fothy was staggered; he actually turned pale; 
for a minute or two he could scarcely speak. There 
had been scarcely a word about the Cosmic Urge in 
the poem, you know ; he'd hardly mentioned it. 

[142] 



An Example of Psychic Power 

"It is wonderful," he said, when he got over the 
shock; "wonderful to be understood!" And you 
know, really — poor dear! — so many people don't 
understand Fothy at all. Nor what he writes, 
either. 

But the strangest thing was — I wish I could make 
you understand how positively eerie it makes me 
feel — that just the instant before he said, "It is 
wonderful to be understood V' I knew he was going 
to say it. I got that psychically, too! 

"Fothy," I said, "it is absolutely weird — I eaves- 
dropped on your brain the second time !" 

"Wonderful!" he said, "but the still more won- 
derful thing would be " 

And before he could finish the sentence it hap- 
pened the third time! I interrupted and finished it 
for him. 

"The still more wonderful thing would be," I 
said, "if it were not so." 

"Heavens!" he cried, "this is getting positively 
ghostly." 

And you know, it almost was. Not that I'm su- 
perstitious at all, you know, in the vulgar way. But 
in the dim room — I always have just candlelight in 
the drawing-room — it fits in with my more reflective 
moods, somehow — I believe one must suit one's 
environment to one's mood, don't you ? — in the dim 
room, all those thoughts flying back and forth be- 

[143] 



Hermione 



tween my brain and his gave me a positively creepy 
feeling. And Fothy was so shaken I had to give 
him a drink of Papa's Scotch before he went out 
into the night. 



SOME BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 

(As Expressed by F other gil Finch, the Vers Libre 

Bard) 

OH, the Beautiful Mud! I always leave it on 
my boots ! It is sacred to me. Because in 
it are the souls of lilies ! 

The Hog should be a sacred beast. Hogs are 
beautiful! They are close to the Mire! Oh, to be 
a Swine! 

What is more eloquent than a Sneeze? The 
Sneeze is the protest of the Free Spirit against the 
Smug Citizen who never exposes himself to a cold. 
Oh, Beautiful Sneezes! Oh, to make my life one 
loud explosive Sneeze in the face of Convention- 
ality ! 

What is so free, so untrammeled, so ungyved, so 
unconventional, as an Influenza Germ? From 
throat to throat it floats, full of the spirit of true 
democratic brotherhood, making the masses equal 
with the classes, careless, winged, ungyved! Oh, 
the Beautiful Germ! Oh, to be an Influenza Germ! 

What is so naive as a Hiccough ! Oh, to be in- 

[I45J 



Hermione 

genuous, unspoiled, beautiful, barbaric! Oh, the 
hiccoughs, the beautiful hiccoughs, the hiccoughs 
of Art uttered against the hurricane of time! 

Bugs are Beautiful! Oh, the beautiful, sleek 
slithery bugs. Oh, to be a water-bug of poesy skip- 
ping across the flood of oblivion! Oh, to be a Bug! 

I went down to the waterfront where they sell 
fish and there I saw a fisherman who had caught a 
Dogfish, and he cursed, but I said to him, "Do not 
curse the Dogfish ! The Dogfish is Symbolical ! The 
Dogfish is beautiful ! Beautiful !" 

Oh ! the lovely Garbage Scows ! I went down the 
bay, and there I saw them dump the Garbage Scows ! 
I said to the man who sailed my boat : "What does 
the Garbage Scow mean to you ?" He was a Philis- 
tine; he was Bourgeois; he was Smug; he was Con- 
ventional, and he said : "A Garbage Scow means a 
Garbage Scow to me !" But I said to him : "You 
are Academic; you are Conservative! Garbage 
Scows are Lovely Symbols! Oh, my Argosies of 
Dream ! Oh, my Beautiful Garbage Scows ! Some 
day even the Philistines of benighted America will 
see the Spiritual Significance of the Lovely Garbage 
Scow!" 

I found a Glue Factory, a Free Untrammeled 
Glue Factory! It was expressing itself. It was 
asserting its individuality. It was saying to the 
Blind Complacent Pillars of Polite Society: "My 

[i 4 6] 



Some Beautiful Thoughts 



aroma is not your aroma, but my aroma is my 
own !" Oh, the Courageous Glue Factory, the Free, 
Unfettered Glue Factory! A thousand Glue Fac- 
tories, from Maine to Oregon, are thus rebuking 
Class Prejudice and Bourgeois Smugness. Like 
Poets, like Prophets of the New Art, they stand, 
Glue Factory after Glue Factory, Expressing their 
Egos, Being Themselves, undaunted, unshackled, 
strong, independent, virile! Oh, to be the Poet of 
the Super Glue Factory! 

With violets in my hands I wandered to the 
wilds, and there I met a Buzzard. He was Being 
Himself! I wove a wreath of the violets and I 
crowned the Buzzard, and the Buzzard said, "Why 
do you crown me?" And I said, "Oh, Lovely Buz- 
zard, are you not Being Yourself? Are you not 
rebuking the Trivial Conventionalities of Our Or- 
ganized Society ? I know your Dream, O Buzzard ! 
Accept this Crown of Violets from our little 
group I" 

Come with me to the zoo, and we will bare our 
Souls to the Hyena, and the Hyena will commune 
with us, and we will know the Meaning of Life! 
Oh, the Lovely Hyena! 



THE BOURGEOIS ELEMENT AND BACK- 
GROUND 

ISN'T it simply wonderful about D'Annunzio 
enlisting as a common soldier and digging 
trenches along with the Due D'Abruzzi and 
those other Italian poets? Or was it D'Abruzzi? 
Anyhow, it was one of those poets that were al- 
ways talking about the Superman. 

Although, I must say, one doesn't hear so much 
about the Superman these days, does one? The 
Superman is going out, you know. 

One of my friends — she's quite an advanced 
thinker, too, and belongs to our little group— told 
me a year or so ago, "Hermione, I will never marry 
until I can find a Superman !" 

"Of course, that is all right, my dear," I said 
to her, "but how about Genetics ?" 

Because, you know, the slogan of our little group 
— that is, one of the slogans — is "Genetics or Spin- 
ster hood !" 

It made her quite angry for some reason. She 
pursed her lips up and acted shocked. 

"It is all very well, Hermione," she said, "to 

[i 4 8] 



The Bourgeois Element and Background 

" — ■' ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ — ■ ■ ■ — - i 

discuss Genetics in the abstract. But to connect the 
discussion with the marriage of a friend is not, to 
my mind, the proper thing at all !" 

Did you ever hear of anything more utterly in- 
consistent ? 

Oh, Consistency! Consistency! Isn't Consist- 
ency perfectly wonderful! 

But that is always the way when it comes to 
a discussion of Sex. The Bourgeois Element are 
never Fundamental and Thorough in their treat- 
ment of Sex, if you know what I mean. 

And, as Fothergil Finch says, in this country we 
are nearly all Bourgeois. 

We have not enough Background for one thing. 

If all the little groups the country over would 
take up the matter of Background in a serious way, 
something might be done about it, don't you think ? 

We must organize — we who are the intellectual 
leaders, you know — and start an effective propa- 
ganda for the purpose of obtaining more Back- 
ground. 



TAKING UP THE LIQUOR PROBLEM 

WE'RE thinking of taking up the Liquor 
Problem — our little group, you know, — ■ 
in quite a serious way. 

The Working Classes would be so much better 
off without liquor. And we who are the leaders 
in thought should set them an example. 

So a number of us have decided to set our faces 
very sternly against drinking in public. 

Of course, a cocktail or two and an occasional 
stinger, is something no one can well avoid taking, 
if one is dining out or having supper after the 
theater with one's own particular crowd. 

But all the members of my own particular little 
group have entered into a solemn agreement not 
to take even so much as a cocktail or a glass of 
wine if any of the working classes happen to be 
about where they can see us and become corrupted 
by our example. 

The Best People owe these sacrifices to the 
Masses, don't you think? 

Of course, the waiters, and people like that, 
really belong to the working classes too, I suppose. 

[150] 



Taking Up the Liquor Problem 

But, as Fothergil Finch says, very often one 
wouldn't know it. And who could expect a waiter 
to be influenced one way or another by anything? 
And it's the home life of the working classes that 
counts, anyhow. 

When we took up Sociology — we gave several 
evenings to Sociological Discussion, you know, be- 
sides doing a lot of practical Welfare Work — it was 
impressed upon me very strongly that if one is to 
do anything at all for the Masses one must first 
sweeten their Home Life. 

Though Papa made me stop poking around into 
the horrid places where they live for fear I might 
catch some dreadful disease. 

And the people we visited weren't at all grateful. 
So very often the Masses are not. 

One dreadful woman, you know, claimed that 
she couldn't keep her rooms — she had two rooms, 
and she cooked and washed and slept and sewed, 
in them and there were five in the family — claimed 
that she couldn't keep her rooms in any better shape 
because they were so out of repair and the plumb- 
ing was bad and the windows leaked and all that 
sort of thing, you know, and one of the rooms was 
entirely dark. 

I preached the doctrine of fresh air and sun- 
shine and cleanliness to her, you know, and the im- 
pudent thing told me Papa owned the building and 

[151] 



Hermione 

it wasn't true at all — Papa only belonged to the 
company that owned the building. One can't do 
much for people who will not be truthful with one, 
can one? 

Besides, it is the Silent Influence that counts more 
than arguments and visiting. 

If one makes one's life what it should be Good 
will Radiate. 

Vibrations from one's Ego will permeate all 
classes of society. 

And that is the way we intend to make ourselves 
felt with regard to the Liquor Problem. We will 
inculcate abstemiousness by example. 

Abstemiousness, Fothy Finch says, should be our 
motto, rather than Abstinence. We shall be quite 
careful not to identify ourselves with the more 
vulgar aspects of the propaganda. 

And of course at social functions in our private 
homes total abstinence is quite out of the question. 

The working classes wouldn't get any example 
from our homes, anyhow; for of course we never 
come into contact with them there. 

But the working classes must be saved from 
themselves, even if all the employers of labor have 
to write out a list of just what they shall eat and 
drink and make them buy only those things. They 
simply must be saved. 

Not that they'll appreciate it. They never do. If 

[152] 



Taking Up the Liquor Problem 

I were not an incorrigible idealist I would be in- 
clined to give them up. 

But someone must give up his life to leading them 
onward and upward. And who is there to do it if 
not we leaders of Modern Thought? 



THE JAPANESE ARE WONDERFUL, IF 
YOU GET WHAT I MEAN 

DON'T you just dote on the Japanese? 
They're so esoteric — and subtle and all that 
sort of thing, aren't they? 

Just look at Buddhism and Shintoism, for in- 
stance. Could anything be more subtle and 
esoteric? 

We've been taking them up — our Little Group 
of Serious Thinkers, you know — and they're won- 
derful, simply wonderful! 

Not, of course, that one would be a Buddhist or 
a Shintoist — but it's broadening to the mind, don't 
you think, to come into contact with the great 
thought of — of — well, really of people like Shinto, 
you know, and those other sages? 

And how wonderfully artistic they are — the 
Japanese ! 

The new parasols are quite Japanese, you know. 
Haven't you seen them ? 

I have three, for different costumes. One is 
covered with embroidered Japanese crepe, and an- 
other with martine silk. 

tiS4] 



The Japanese Are Wonderful 

But the one, I think, that expresses me the most 
accurately — the one that represents my individual- 
ity, really — is made with gold spokes covered with 
black Chantilly lace. Japanese shape, you know, 
and French workmanship. 

And one must strive to represent one's self if one 
is to be honest. 

One must put one's soul into one's environment. 

Although Environment isn't what it used to be. 
You don't hear Environment spoken of nearly as 
often as you did. 

Environment is going out. 

But besides being so esoteric and exotic and ar- 
tistic, and all that sort of thing, the Japanese are 
wonderfully up to date, too. 

Do you know, they actually have a battleship 
named The Tango! 

Have you thought deeply on Interstellar Com- 
munication? 

It promises to be one of the great new problems. 

The loveliest man talked to us about it the other 
evening. "Interstellar Communication in Its Re- 
lation to Recent Psychic Hypotheses" — that's the 
title ; I wrote it down. I always take notes of a title 
like that. It helps one to get at the heart of the 
matter. 

Interstellar Communication is wonderful — simply 
wonderful! 

[155] 



Hermione 

We're going to take up Mars soon. 

Mamma said to me only yesterday : "Hermione, 
you simply must drop some of your serious subjects 
during the hot weather." 

"Mamma," I told her, "that was all very well in 
your day — to take things up and drop them at will. 
But people didn't have a Social Conscience in those 
times. We advanced thinkers owe a duty to the 
race. We must grapple with things. We are not 
content to frivol, I will take up Mars!" 

And, you know, I don't have the temperament to 
remain idle. My mind must be active. Sometimes 
when I think how active my mind is, I wonder my 
forehead isn't wrinkled. 

And of course that would be a loss — anything 
is a loss that destroys Beauty. 

For, after all, Beauty is what the world needs 
more than anything else. It's a serious thought — 
how far Use should be sacrificed to Beauty, and 
Beauty to Use, isn't it? 

You know that's why I can't join the suffragists. 
I am one, of course, but that suffragist yellow is 
such a horrid color I simply cannot wear it. 



SHE REFUSES TO GIVE UP THE COSMOS 

WE'VE taken up Gertrude Stein — our Little 
Group of Serious Thinkers, you know — 
and she's wonderful; simply wonderful. 

She Suggests the Inexpressible, you know. 

Of course, she is a Pioneer. And with all 
Pioneers — don't you think — the Reach is greater 
than the Grasp. 

Not that you can tell what she means. 

But in the New Art, one doesn't have to mean 
things, does one? One strikes the chords, and the 
chords vibrate. 

Aren't Vibrations just too perfectly lovely for 
anything ? 

The loveliest man talked to us the other night 
about World Movements and Cosmic Vibrations. 

You see, every time the Cosmos vibrates it means 
a new World Movement. 

And the Souls that are in Tune with the Cosmos 
are benefited by these World Movements. The 
other souls will get harm out of them. 

Frightfully interesting, isn't it? — the Cosmos, I 
mean. 

[157] 



Hermione 

I have given so much thought to it! It has be- 
come almost an obsession to me. 

Only the other evening I was thinking about it. 
And without realizing that I spoke aloud I said, 
"I simply could not do without the Cosmos!" 

Mamma — poor dear Mamma ! — she is so terribly 
unadvanced, you know! — Mamma said: "Hermi- 
one, I do not know what the Cosmos is. But this I 
do know — not another Sex Discussion or East 
Indian Swami will ever come into this house!" 

"Mamma," I said to her, "I will not give up the 
Cosmos. It means everything to me ; simply every- 
thing!" 

I am always firm with Mamma; it is kinder, in 
the long run, to be quite positive. But what I 
suffer at home from objections to the advanced 
movements nobody knows ! 

Nobody but the Leaders of Thought can dream 
what Martyrdom is! 

Sacrifice! Sacrifice! That is the keynote of the 
Liberal Life! 

Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask 
myself: "Have I shown the Sacrificial Spirit to- 
day? Or have I failed?" 



THE CAVE MAN 

DON'T you think the primitive is just simply 
too fascinating for anything? We've all 
got it in us, you know, and it seems like 
nowadays the more cultured and advanced one is the 
more likely the primitive is to break out on one. 

I have a strong strain of the primitive in me, you 
know. 

I wouldn't take anything for it — it's simply won- 
derful — wonderful ! 

It comes over me so strong at times, the yearning 
for the primitive does, that I just sit with a dreamy 
look on my face and murmur to myself: "Alone, 
alone — under the stars! Alone!" 

Mamma overheard me saying that the other day 
and thought I had gone crazy, and she said: "For 
Heaven's sake, Hermione, what are you thinking 
about, and what do you want?" 

"The stars," I murmured, scarcely knowing that 
I spoke aloud, "the stars and my Cave Man 1" 

Mamma was shocked — she says for an unmar- 
ried woman to think of Cave Men is simply in- 
delicate. 

[159] 



Her mi one 

Mamma is not at all advanced, you know. 

She's dear and sweet, but she doesn't believe in 
Trial Marriages at all. 

And I must admit they shocked me when I first 
heard about them. But that was before I had taken 
up these things seriously. 

"Mamma," I said to her, "it is no use for you to 
pretend to be shocked. I have a right to happiness. 
And happiness to me means being alone, under the 
stars, and walking barefoot and bareheaded in the 
dew." 

"Alone with a Cave Man!" she said. And then 
she cried. 

Tears ! — that is so like the old-fashioned woman ! 

"Mamma," I said, kindly, but firmly, "if it is my 
destiny to be kidnaped by a Cave Man and taken 
into the waste places, under the stars, can I avoid 
it?" 

She said I could at least be respectable, and that 
I was acting like I wanted to be kidnaped. 

And, you know, at times I do feel as if that 
might be my fate, really. I am so psychic, you 
know, and psychics feel their fate coming on quicker 
than most people. 

I told Mamma that I felt every woman had a 
right to choose the father of her own children, and 
she was shocked again. And then she wanted to 
know what being kidnaped by a Cave Man had 

[160] 



The Cave Man 



to do with choosing the father of one's own chil- 
dren, and how did I know but these Cave Men 
kidnaped a different woman every year? 

But I settled her. 

"Mamma," I said, "you are not advanced, and 
so I cannot argue with you. You wouldn't under- 
stand. But if I am primitive — and I feel that 
I am — whose fault is it? Who did I inherit it 
from?" 

She couldn't say anything to that. She didn't 
like to own that I inherited it from her. And she 
knew if she blamed it onto Papa I would ask her 
how she dared to deny me a primitive man when 
she had married one herself. 

Finally she quit crying and said, pressing her 
lips together: "Hermione, do you know any of 
those Cave Men?" 

But I refused to answer. I went to my room. 

Dissension disturbs the soul's harmony. 

One's subliminal consciousness must ever vibrate 
in harmony with the Cosmic All. 

I never fuss when a person disturbs me. I just 
go into the Silences and vibrate there. 

But I kept thinking: "Do I know any Cave 
Men?" 

I think I do — one. He tries to conceal it. But 
it's his secret, I'm sure. 

He has the most luminous eyes! 

[161] 



Hermione 

Like a wolf's, you know, when it gallops across 
the waste places — under the stars, alone! 

And the way he eats! I don't mean that he's 
noisy, you know. But the way he crunched a chick- 
en bone the last time he dined with me was perfectly 
wonderful — so nonchalant, you know, and loudly 
and — and — well, primitive ! I'm sure he's one ! 

I wouldn't go autoing with him for anything — 
unless, of course, he gave me one of those compel- 
ling glances, like Cave Men do in the magazines, 
you know. Then I'd know it was destiny and use- 
less to resist. 



THE LITTLE GROUP GIVES A PAGAN 

MASQUE 

The Little Group gave a party 

And all of the gods were there, 
From Thor to Miss Susan Astarte 

With doo-daddles gemming her hair, 

Bill Baldur and Jane Aphrodite, 

Dick Vishnu and Benny O'Baal, 
And Bacchus came on in a nightie 

With little pink snakes on the tail; 

Latin, Phoenician and Hindu, 

Norse and Egyptian and Chink. . . . 

Castor was watching his Twin do 
Stunts, with a brotherly wink. . . . 

Persephone swearing by Hades. . . . 

A Norn and a Sibylline Simp. . . . 
A Momus, who showed to the ladies 

The latest Olympian limp. 

Was Hermione present? By Crikey! 
(This Crikey's a Whitechapel joss) 

[163] 



Hermione 

Our Hermy attended as Psyche — 
She siked and she got it across! 

And Fothergil Finch, rather gaumy 
With Cosmic cosmetics, was there, 

But the Swami went just as the Swami, 
After oiling the kinks in his hair. 

I said to Hermione: "Goddess! 

You're graceful, you're Greek, you're a rose, 
From the pinions that rise from your bodice 

To the raddle I note on your toes, 

"And Fothergil, here, with his censer, 
And his little cheeks crimson as beets, 

Your acolyte, perfume-dispenser, 
Is sweet as a page out of Keats, 

"But tell me, my Dea — my Psyche! — 
(With your wings outspread as to race 

With that swift and acephalous Nike 

Who lost her bean somewhere in Thrace) — 

"My Thea — my classical pigeon! — 

Is not your Sincerity shocked 
By this giddy revue of religion ? . . . 

Are none of these gods being mocked? . . . 

[i6 4 ] 



The Little Group Gives a Pagan Masque 

"In the regions unknowable — Thea! — 

Where the Noumenon chums with the Nous, 

Where the Idol gets hep to Idea, 
And Pythagoras ogles a Goose, 

"In the heavens of Brahm and Osiris, 

Are they peeved with this revel, I ask? . . . 

Does Pluto like this, where his fire is? . . . 

What in hell do they think of this masque? . . , 

"Where the avatars, drowsed in Nirvana, 

Lie folded like bees in the comb, 
Where Jove with his spangled bandanna 

Wipes off the nectareous foam, 

"Where the deities, avid of Is-ness, 
Re surge from the Flivvers that Were, 

While the wild Chaotical Whizness 
Gives place to a Cosmic Whir, 

"Do they relish this josh of the josses? 

Do they lamp not the same with a grouch ? 
Are you stinging these gloomy Big Bosses 

To a keener, immortaler ouch ?" 

Hermione murmured: "How eerie! 

You are voicing my own Inner Mood! 
Ah, me! but the world is less dreary 

If one is but Understood! 

[165] 



Hermione 



"And I thank you, I thank you, for rising 
To my personal point of view. . . . 

I thank you for Sympathising! . . . 
Dear man, how you always do!" 




SYMPATHY 

F course, we're out of town for the sum- 
mer — everybody's out of town, now — but 
I motor in once or twice a week to keep in 
touch with some of my committees. 

Sociological work, for instance, keeps right up 
the year around. 

Of course, it's not so interesting as in the winter. 
You see more striking contrasts in the winter, don't 
you think? 

A couple of girl cousins of mine from Cincinnati 
have been here. They're interested in welfare work 
of all sorts. 

"Hermione," they said, "we want to see the 
bread line." 

"My dears," I said, "I don't mind showing it to 
you, but it's nothing much to see in summer. It's 
in the winter that it arouses one's deepest sym- 
pathies." 

And one must keep one's sympathies aroused. 
Often I say to myself at night : "Have I been sym- 
pathetic today, or have I failed?" 

[167] 



Hermione 

mmmmmm iii i i !■■■■■ ■■■■■mm ■ m i n ■ ■ - ■■■ii i iw i' .i ■■ ■■ ii i i i i ■—■■■ i.i^ i.^— ■— 

Mamma often lacks sympathy. She objects to 
having me reopen my Salon this winter. 

"Hermione," she said, "I don't mind the subjects 
you take up — or the people you take up with — if 
you only take them up one at a time. And I am 
glad when your own little group meets here, be- 
cause it keeps you at home. But I will not have 
all the different kinds of freaks here at the same 
time, sitting around discussing free love and sex 
education.' , 

I was indignant. "Mamma," I said, "what right 
have you to say they would discuss that all the 
time?" 

"Because," she said, "I have noticed that no mat- 
ter whether they start with sociology or psychology, 
they always get around to Sex in the end." 

Isn't it funny about pure-minded people ? — in the 
generation before this anything that shocked a pure- 
minded person like Mamma was sure to be bad. 

But now it's only the evil-minded people who 
ever get shocked at all, it seems. 

The really purest of the pure-minded people don't 
get shocked by anything at all these days. 

I think Mamma is either getting purer-minded all 
the time or losing some of it — I can't tell which — 
for she isn't shocked as easily as she was a few 
months ago. 

But I got a shock myself recently. 

Tt68] 



Sympathy 

I found out that plants have Sex, you know. 

Just think of it — carrots, onions, turnips, pota- 
toes, and everything! 

Isn't it frightful to think that this agitation has 
spread to the vegetable kingdom ? 

I vowed I would never eat another potato as 
long as I lived! 

And, after all, what good does it do — letting the 
vegetable kingdom have Sex, I mean? 

Even a good thing, you know, can be carried too 
far. 

"Mamma," I told her, "you are hopelessly behind 
the times. Sex is a Great Fact. Someone must 
discuss it. And who but the Leaders of Thought 
are worthy to?" 

I intend to say nothing more about it now — but 
when the time comes I will reopen my Salon. 

And as far as talking about Sex is concerned — ■ 
the right sort of a mind will get good out of it, and 
the wrong sort will get harm. 

I don't really like discussions of Sex any more 
than Mamma does. No really nice girl does. 

But we advanced thinkers owe a duty to the 
race. 

Not that the race is grateful. Especially the 
lower classes. 

It was only last week that I was endeavoring to 
introduce the cook to some advanced ideas — for her 

[169] 



Hermione 

own good, you know, and because one owes a spir- 
itual duty to one's servants — and she got angry and 
gave notice. 

The servant problem is frightful. It will have to 
be taken up seriously. 



BLOUSES, BULGARS AND BUTTERMILK 

OME of us — Our Little Group of Advanced 
Thinkers, you know — are going in for Bul- 
garian buttermilk. 

It came in about the time the Bulgarian blouses 
did — there was a war over there somewhere, you 
know, before this big war, that made it fashionable. 

But the blouses went out, and the buttermilk 
stayed in. 

It seems there's a Bulgarian by the name of 
Metchnikoff in Paris who sits down and designs 
these things — the buttermilk, you know, not the 
blouses. 

Isn't science wonderful — simply wonderful! 

We're going to take up Metchnikoff in a serious 
way. You know what he aims to do is to lengthen 
life. 

The question is: "Should life be lengthened? 
Or should it not?" 

The Leaders of Thought will have to thresh that 
out soon. 

The question of old age is a subtle one, isn't it? 

And it's very typical of our times, don't you 

[171] 



Hermione 

think, that we should discuss the problems of old 
age? 

Other epochs have done it, of course, but not 
optimistically. 

The question enters into everything — even milli- 
nery. 

I'm having the loveliest hat adapted from a 
French model — to wear with my lingerie costumes, 
you know — a wide-brimmed black lace with a black 
velvet crown. 

It's only recently that young women could afford 
to wear black, even when it was becoming. When 
Mamma was young it was a sign that youth was 
past. 

And nowadays, age doesn't matter so much one 
way or another. A person is the age one feels, 
you know. 

Have you thought deeply on Hypnagogic Illu- 
sions ? We're planning to take them up. 



TWILIGHT SLEEP 

HAVE you read anything about the Twilight 
Sleep yet? It's wonderful; simply won- 
derful! 

The loveliest man told our little group all about 
it — just the other evening. 

"Hermione," said Mamma, "I will not have you 
taking up any more subjects of that East Indian 
character. No Swami shall ever enter this house 
again !" 

"Mamma," I said to her, "you are hopelessly un- 
advanced. It has nothing whatever to do with 
Going into the Silences or Swamis. It's entirely 
scientific and not psychic at all. And if it were 
psychic, what then?" 

"No Swami," said Mamma, even more stubborn- 
ly, "shall ever darken my door again!" 

Poor, dear, stupid Mamma! She gets things so 
mixed ! 

"As far as Swamis are concerned," I told her, 
"the debt we owe to them is incalculable. Where, 
for instance, would we have ever heard of Karma 
if it had not been for the Swamis?" 

[173] 



Hermione 

She couldn't answer; she just looked stubborn; 
unadvanced people always look stubborn and glare. 

"Where," I said, "did we get the Vedantas and 
Vegetarianism and Alternate Breathing from?" 

She couldn't say a word. She just pouted. 

"Who taught us," I said, "Transmigration of 
Souls and Vibrations?" 

She broke down and cried. 

"Hermione," she said, "I simply hate howdahs 
and cobras and swastikas and all those Oriental 
things !" 

Mamma has no idea whatever of logic. She is a 
typical old-fashioned woman. 

"Mamma," I said, "cry as much as you like. You 
shall not disturb my Inner Harmony! I will not 
permit you to. And my mind is made up. I will 
take up the Twilight Sleep in a serious way!" 

That settled it, too. 

Have you noticed, there's been just a hint of 
autumn in the air these last few days? 

Have you seen the new styles for autumn ? They 
are wonderful; simply wonderful! 



INTUITION 

IN spite of all we've done for them — by we I 
mean the serious thinkers of the world — some 
people are so frightfully uncultured! 

A girl asked me the other day — and the surpris- 
ing thing about it, too, is that she belonged to our 
own Little Group of Advanced Thinkers — she asked 
me : "Hermione, don't you just dote on Rubaiyat's 
poetry?" 

For a moment I couldn't think who she meant at 
all. 

"He's not an American, is he ?" I said. 

"Oh, no," she said, "he's some sort of an Ori- 
ental." 

"It isn't Rubaiyat you're thinking of, my dear," 
I told her. "It's Rabindranath. Rabindranath 
Something-or-other, that new man — he's wonder- 
ful, my dear, simply wonderful." 

And then she quoted some *of it and — the idea 
is too absurd for anything, but what do you sup- 
pose it was? 

Omar Khayyam — imagine ! 

And really, you know, it's been years since any- 

[i7S] 



Hermione 



body quoted Omar Khayyam; he's quite gone out, 
you know! 

Even the question whether he was moral doesn't 
attract any attention any more. Although as far 
as that is concerned, the pure mind will get purity 
out of him and the impure mind will get impurity. 
Honi soit qui- — what is the rest of it? Oh, you 
know — it's Latin — what the Romans used to say 
about Caesar's wife and her continual suspicions. 

My, how a suspicious wife can handicap a man! 

But, of course, as women get more and more 
advanced, and know about the lives men lead, they 
are finding out that their suspicions were justified. 

Their intuitions told them so all the time. 

I have a lot of intuition myself — the moment a 
man comes I judge him in spite of myself. 

First impressions always last with me, too. 

You know, I'm very psychic. 

Sometimes I am almost frightened when I think 
of the things my intuition would tell me if I al- 
lowed it to roam at will, so to speak, among my 
friends and acquaintances. 

But I restrain it. One must, you know. The 
loveliest man gave us such an interesting talk on 
self-restraint the other evening. 

And now I always ask myself the last thing be- 
fore I go to bed at night : "Have I restrained my- 
self today? Or have I failed?" 

[176] 



Intuition 

There is no real culture without restraint, you 
know. 

That's where the English are so superior, don't 
you think? 

I met the loveliest Englishman the other eve- 
ning. The moment I saw him I said to myself he 
was one of the aristocracy. Other people have 
noses like theirs, of course, but it is only the Eng- 
lish aristocracy who can carry that kind of a nose. 

And my intuition was correct — there are only 
five lives between him and a title, and one of those 
is a polo player and another is at the front. 

Someone told me his family were paying him 
not to go home, but what they think the poor man 
would do if he were in England I don't know, be- 
cause they don't duel there, you know. If they 
duelled there, of course, he might dispose of all 
five lives. 

Don't you think those old European families are 
so, so — well, so romantic, somehow? 



STIMULATING INFLUENCES 

SCIENCE and philanthropy should go hand in 
hand — two hearts that beat as one, if you 
know what I mean, and all that sort of thing. . 

And they do, too. We were discussing it the 
other evening — our Little Group of Serious Think- 
ers, you know — and we decided that what philan- 
thropy owes to science is made up by what science 
owes to philanthropy. 

Isn't it wonderful how things balance like that? 

There's the Twilight Sleep and the Mother- 
Teacher Idea, for instance. 

Our little group are thinking of starting a propa- 
ganda to urge all Teachers to be Mothers. 

And, of course, a lot of them might object — but 
along comes the Twilight Sleep and takes away all 
possible objections. 

And along comes Philanthropy to put the Twi- 
light Sleep within the reach of all — at least, we 
hope it will — and we're going to take the matter up 
with some of the Philanthropists right away. 

Isn't it just simply wonderful how Modern 
Thought brings subjects like that together? 

[178] 



Stimulating Influences 



Of course, even Modern Thought couldn't do it, 
unless the subjects belonged together, anyhow, could 
it? Unless they were — er — er 

Well, you know, Affinities. Though I don't care 
much for the word. 

Affinities have quite gone out, you know. You 
don't hear much about Affinities this autumn. 

Nor Soul Mates, either, for that matter. 

Though I always will say there's an Idea behind 
all the talk about them. 

Isn't it odd about things that way — how Ideas 
come and go, you know, and become quite old- 
fashioned, and yet all the time have a quite pro- 
found Idea back of them? 

There's Cubist and Futurist Art, for instance — 
one doesn't hear nearly so much about them now, 
though everyone admitted there was an Idea be- 
hind them. 

Of course, no one knew what the Idea meant. 

But it was stimulating. 

And why should an Idea have to mean anything 
if it is Stimulating? 

Stimulation! Stimulation! That is the secret 
of Modern Life! 

One should be receptive to Stimulation — one 
should strive to Stimulate! 

One owes it to the Masses to Stimulate! It is 
the duty of the leaders of Advanced Thought! 

[179] 



Hermione 

Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask my- 
self, "Have I been a Stimulating Influence today? 
Or have I failed?" 

Fothergil Finch says I Stimulate him! 

Poor, dear man! — he's becoming quite — quite — 
well, er — er — too encouraged, if you know what I 
mean. 

Yes, that is the way with poets. 

I doubt if any poet ever understood a purely 
Platonic Friendship. 

I gave him a long, long look last evening and 
said, "Fothergil, can you keep on the Platonic 
Plane?" 

He only said, "Alas! The Platonic Plane!" 

I hope he can. I need him for my Salon. 

I'm having the entire ground floor of the house 
done over for that, you know, and I may reopen it 
any time now ! 



POLITICS 

I'M thinking of taking up politics in a practical 
way. 

I've never been an active suffragist, you 
know, on account of that horrid yellow color on the 
banners and things. 

But one must sacrifice Ideals of Beauty to Ideals 
of Usefulness, mustn't one? 

And politics is fascinating; simply fascinating! 

Going about and organizing working girls, you 
know, and seeing Corrupt Bosses and enlisting them 
for Moral Causes, and making one's self felt as a 
Force — could one make one's self more Utile? 

More spiritually Utile? 

Utility! That is what our Leaders of Thought 
need to develop ! 

Nearly every night before I go to bed I say to 
myself: "Have I been Utile today? Or have I 
failed?" 

Politics, practical politics, will be such an outlet 
for my personality, too. 

And when I reopen my Salon I can make it count 
for the Cause, too. 

[iSi] 



Hermione 

We are going to give an evening soon — our 
Group of Advanced Thinkers, you know — to a seri- 
ous and thorough study of political economy. They 
say it's simply wonderful. 

The loveliest woman talked to us the other eve- 
ning. She's a poet. When women have charge of 
affairs, she said, Humanitarianism, Idealism and the 
Poetic Spirit will rule in public life. 

Won't that be lovely? 

But we must be practical, and get the Bosses on 
our side. They are simply horrid people socially 
and ethically, you know. But there's something 
frightfully fascinating about the idea of bearding 
them in their dens with petitions and things. 

Though how the idea of abolishing men alto- 
gether will work out I don't know. 

Some of the leaders of the Cause seem to want it. 
I have no doubt it could be done. Some plants and 
insects have only the female sex, you know. And 
maybe the human race will be that way one day. 

Although, for my part, if they could only be re- 
formed I'd favor retaining men. 

There's something about them so — so — well, so 
masculine somehow, if you know what I mean. 

But I must hurry — I have to do some shopping. 

Clothes are a bore, aren't they? 



HERMIONE ON PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 

SPIRITUALISM is becoming quite the thing, 
isn't it? 

Dear Sir Oliver Lodge has been proving 
some more things quite recently, you know. How 
anyone could doubt a man with such a lovely head 
and face I can't imagine ! 

Spiritualism and Spiritism are quite different, you 
know. It has been a long time, really, since Spir- 
itualism was taken seriously. 

Except by superstitious people, of course. 

But Spiritism has come to stay. It has nothing 
to do with superstition at all. It's part of Advanced 
Thought — quite scientific, you know, while Spiritu- 
alism was just a fad. 

And Spiritualism is somehow more — well, er — 
vulgar, if you get what I mean. The sort of people 
one cares to know well have dropped Spiritualism 
for Spiritism. 

Though, of course, a ghost is a ghost, whether it 
is materialized by Spiritualism or Spiritism. 

I have been often told that I am naturally very 
clairvoyant — if I were developed I would make a 

[183] 



Hermione 

splendid medium. Mediums have seen shapes hov- 
ering around my head, and once when I was at 
school I did some automatic writing. 

It was the strangest, easiest thing ! I had a pen- 
cil in my hand and without thinking of anything in 
particular at all I just scribbled away, and what I 
wrote was, "When in the course of human events 
it becomes necessary ; When in the course of human 
events it becomes necessary, " over and over again. 

I was quite startled, for the last thing I had been 
thinking of was an algebra examination, and not 
history at all. We had had our history examination 
days before. 

I felt as if an unseen hand had reached out of 
the Silences and grasped mine! 

Wasn't it weird? 

And I know who it was, too. A distant relative 
of Mamma's on her father's side, by marriage, was 
one of the men who signed the Constitution of the 
United States in Faneuil Hall, in Philadelphia, in 
1776, and it was his spirit that was trying to de- 
liver his message through me ! 

And only last year I came across a very similar 
case. Only this was stranger than mine, if any- 
thing. For it happened on a typewriter — which 
proves that the veil between the two worlds must 
be very thin, doesn't it, if the spirits are taking up 
modern inventions? 

[184] 



Hermione on Psychical Research 

It happened to one of Papa's stenographers. I 
had her up to the house to take notes for a report 
I was making to one of the sociological committees 
I was on then. 

And she took the notes and put them into shape 
for me, but when she sent the report to me the back 
of one of the sheets was just full of one sentence 
written over and over again. She didn't know she'd 
included that sheet, of course. 

It was so curious I asked her about it. 

She looked a little queer and said that when she 
wasn't thinking of anything in particular, but just 
sitting before her typewriter and not working, she 
always wrote that sentence. 

"It just comes into my head," she said, "and I 
write it." 

"An occult force guides your fingers?" I asked. 

"Yes, ma'am, that's it," she said. 

Over and over and over again she had written, 
"Now is the time for all good men to come to the 
aid of the party." 

And here is the eerie part of it — it almost fright- 
ened me when I got it out of her ! — her father had 
been some sort of a politician; a district leader, or 
something like that. And he was dead, and she 
had had to go to work. 

But he was trying to deliver a message through 
her! 

[185] 



Hermione 

Isn't Psychical Research simply wonderful! 

Not that I'd care to go in for any vulgar thing 
such as tin trumpets, you know, but 

Well, there's the Astral Body. That hasn't been 
vulgarized at all, if you get what I mean. Really, 
the Best People have them. 



ENVOY 

HERMIONE, THE DEATHLESS 

She will not die! — in Brainstorm Slum 
Fake, Nut and Freak Psychologist 

Eternally shall buzz and hum, 

And Spook and Swami keep their tryst 
With Thinkers in a Mental Mist. 

You threaten her with Night and Sorrow ? 
Out of the Silences, I wist, 

More Little Groups will rise tomorrow ! 

The lips of Patter ne'er are dumb, 

The Futile Mills shall grind their grist 
Of sand from now till Kingdom Come; 

The Winds of Bunk are never whist. 

You scowl and shake an honest fist — 
You threaten her with Night and Sorrow ? 

Go slay one Pseudo-Scientist, 
More Little Groups will rise tomorrow! 

With Fudge to feed the Hungry Bum 
She plays the Girl Philanthropist — 

[187] 



Hermione 



Each pinchbeck, toy Millenium 

She swings, a Bangle, at her wrist — 
Blithe Parrot and Pert Egoist, 

You threaten her with Night and Sorrow ? 
Hermiones will aye persist! 

More Little Groups will rise tomorrow! 

She, whom Prince Platitude has kissed, 

You threaten her with Night and Sorrow? 

Slay her by thousands, friend — but list: 
More Little Groups will rise tomorrow ! 



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